to black market
1
4.8
- phrasal verb
- /blæk ˈmɑrkɪt/
:
traficar en el mercado negro
- Many people resort to black market trading to find goods that are hard to obtain legally.
Examples
-
If efforts are made to try to move in this direction via legislative means, abortion will simply go black market.
Blog text (16) -
To sell in the black market.
Fiction book (2001) -
My dad would steal that, bring it home and make suits and sell it on the black market for extra cash.
-
Black market gas? - Only gas we got here is Mobil.
-
When lots of government jobs disappeared, some unemployed passed the time in demonstrations, others at the beach, and some in the labor black market.
Blog text (5) -
- That's to discourage black marketing.
-
I bought it black market and dirt cheap from a Belgian arms dealer in Kazakhstan.
-
Individual entrepreneurs often trade in the illegal (black) market, which trades at its own rate (4,300 Soum per U.S. dollar).
Academic text (2016) -
The chase is on with Susan and Walker pursued by the black-market racketeers who, in turn, are trailed by the police.
Blog text (20) -
He was arrested for trying to black market scarce medical supplies during the crisis.
Synonyms
839
8.6
To secretly move illegal goods from one place to another
324
3.0
To buy and sell goods, sometimes illegally
How Illegal
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is partly compositional: 'market' (place of trade) combined with a figurative use of 'black' (marking illicit/hidden activity) yields 'illegal trade'. Many languages use the same pattern (e.g., Spanish 'mercado negro'), so the logic is accessible, but the meaning relies on a metaphorical extension of 'black' rather than a strictly literal combination and may not be immediately obvious to a B1 learner who only knows 'black' as a colour.
Etymology
Black market as a verb comes from the same hidden image: people selling outside the official market, in secret. So to black market something means 'to buy or sell illegally'.