blackball n : the act of excluding someone by a negative vote or veto [syn: barring]

1 expel from a community or group [syn: banish, ban, ostracize, ostracise, shun, cast out]

2 vote against; refuse to endorse; refuse to assent; "The President vetoed the bill" [syn: veto, negative]

English

Pronunciation

• /blæk'bɔːl/

Noun

1. a rejection, a vote against admitting someone
2. a black ball used to indicate such a negative vote

   Regardless how many other people may have voted to approve a candidate for membership,a single blackball will reject the candidate.

3. the act of so rejecting someone

Translations

Verb

1. to vote against, especially in an exclusive organization

   If you're not from a moneyed, well-connected family, you can count on getting blackballed from the fraternity.

2. to ostracize

Translations

Blackball, black-ball or black ball can mean several things:

Society and culture

• Blackballing, ostracizing someone socially, e.g. prevention of finding local or field-specific employment, blacklisting from a club or other organization, etc. The name derives from an early voting system.

Geography

• Blackball, New Zealand, a small town located on the western coast of the South Island of New Zealand; see also Blackball Branch in the "Transportation" section, below.

Games and sporting

• Blackball (pool), a variant of pocket billiards, sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Association, and popular in the UK and Australia among a few other places, and closely related to the American-style game of eight-ball

• The or 8 ball in that game and in British pool in general

• Blackball, a pejorative term used to represent the Black baseball movement including the formation of Negro league baseball

Nautical

• "Blackball", a nickname for the letter  i  flag among the international maritime signal flags, featuring a black solid circle on a yellow background, and having specific additional meanings in certain contexts ("no surfing allowed in this area" at lifeguarded beaches, "no diving allowed in this area" at swimming pools, "gale warning" in a harbor, etc.)

Film

• Blackball, a 2003 film starring Paul Kaye
• Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story, a 2004 film starring Rob Corddry

Music

• "Blackball" (Offspring song), a song on their 1989 self-titled album
• "Blackball", a song by the industrial band KMFDM, on their 2003 album WWIII
• Blackball Records, a record label that releases music from the punk band Jawbreaker among others

Transportation

• Black Ball Line, a name for the Puget Sound Navigation Company's ferry system (British Columbia, Canada, and Washington state, US)
• Black Ball Line (trans-Atlantic packet), a fleet of packet ships running between Liverpool and New York, the first scheduled trans-Atlantic service, founded in 1817
• Blackball Branch a branch railway line to Blackball, New Zealand (see "Geography" above).

Software

• BlackBall, Inc., a producer of digital asset management software.

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