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

By studying this polarization, IXPE can help astronomers probe some of the deepest mysteries of the cosmos, such as why black holes spin, what powers the extreme jets blasting from supermassive black holes, or why pulsars glow so brightly in X-ray light. —Brett Tingley, Space.com, 27 Mar. 2026

The effect for stellar-mass black holes is vanishingly small but actually gets larger for less massive black holes. —Phil Plait, Scientific American, 27 Mar. 2026

Its escape games span from exploring ruins for treasure to saving the solar system from a black hole. —Matthew Geiger, Denver Post, 25 Mar. 2026

And while your guesses have been out of this world, Ken, there are some major black holes in your constellation map. —Michael Schneider, Variety, 19 Mar. 2026

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