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

The breakthrough comes from Professor Guoan Zheng’s lab, where researchers drew inspiration from an unlikely source, the Event Horizon Telescope, the global radio telescope array that captured the first-ever image of a black hole. —Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 23 Dec. 2025

If the star keeps collapsing, a black hole is the result. —Adam Harrington, CBS News, 23 Dec. 2025

This results in new stellar material slamming into the matter that the black hole has been stealing throughout the system's history. —Robert Lea, Space.com, 19 Dec. 2025

What if your child is a black hole of neediness? —Angelica Jade Bastién, Vulture, 19 Dec. 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