English

Noun

black man ‎(plural black men)

1. Used other than as an idiom: see black,‎ man.
   • 1883, Henry Richter, Chess Simplified!, page 4:

     The white men are always put on that side of the board which commences by row I, and the black men are placed opposite.

   • 1908, The Chess Amateur, volume 2, page 39:

     We will suppose that you are the player of the white men, and that your opponent[,] the player of the black men[,] is sitting opposite to you, ready for battle.

2. A (male) member of an ethnic group having dark pigmentation of the skin, typically of sub-Saharan African descent.
3. (usually with the) Black people collectively; black culture.

   The state's policy of "separate but equal" was really about keeping the black man down.‎

   • 1873, Mary C Wilson, “Testimonies: Claims of Woman”, in Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends, page 16:

     We know how bitter was the contest which freed at once the black man from an enforced subordination and the white master from the moral and spiritual degradation which were inseparable from the unnatural relation in which he stood.

   • 1999, Irvine Belinda Robnett, quoting Victoria Black, How Long? How Long? : African-American Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights, ISBN 0199761698, page 41:

     Any time there is an opportunity for the Black man in the community to be in that leadership role, the community wants him there.

   • 2010, Alfred A. Davis, Black Man Made in the U. S. A., ISBN 1450069037, page 77:

     Ever since the Black man was accepted in professional sports, the game quality has constantly risen to new heights

4. (now rare) An evil spirit, a demon.
   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, vol.1, New York, 2001, p.387:

     he suspects everything he hears and sees to be a devil, or enchanted, and imagineth a thousand chimeras and visions, which to his thinking he certainly sees, bugbears, talks with black men, ghosts, goblins, etc.