black hole

noun

1

: a celestial object that has a gravitational field so strong that light cannot escape it and that is believed to be created especially in the collapse of a very massive star

2

: something resembling a black hole: such as

a

: something that consumes a resource continually

a financial black hole

b

: an empty space : void

… the archives of the past few years are a black hole.

—David Herman

c

: a dark and seemingly inescapable state or situation

the black hole of depression

Synonyms of black hole

• emptiness
• vacancy
• void
• blank

Examples of black hole in a Sentence

discovered that there was a black hole in the library's collection with regard to her topic

Recent Examples on the Web

Gas and dust fall into a rotating disk around the black hole, and as the debris spirals more rapidly, it becomes superheated, releasing intense radiation. —Ashley Strickland, CNN Money, 7 Nov. 2025

Spacetime may be more strongly curved inside of a black hole’s event horizon, but anything that happens in there can’t get out; nothing can escape a black hole’s interior, even at the speed of light. —Big Think, 7 Nov. 2025

Then there are meetings — the black holes of the business universe where time goes to die. —Brendan Keegan, Rolling Stone, 6 Nov. 2025

The black hole of fossil fuels was not, in other words, only expanded by the likes of Oxy. —Literary Hub, 5 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1963, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for black hole

• bankroll
• bedroll
• borehole
• cajole
• catchpole
• charcoal
• condole
• control
• dipole
• downhole
• enroll
• extol

Kids Definition

black hole

noun

: an invisible region believed to exist in space having a very strong gravitational field and thought to be caused by the collapse of a star