[1] : The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

black hole \black" hole`\
   a dungeon or dark cell in a prison; a military lock-up or
   guardroom; -- now commonly with allusion to the cell the
   black hole in a fort at calcutta called the black hole of
   calcutta, into which 146 english prisoners were thrust by
   the nabob suraja dowla on the night of june 20, 1765, and in
   which 123 of the prisoners died before morning from lack of
   air.
   1913 webster

         a discipline of unlimited autocracy, upheld by rods,
         and ferules, and the black hole.         --h. spencer.
   1913 webster

   2. physics, astron. an astronomical object whose mass is so
      condensed that the gravitational force does not allow
      anything, even light, to escape from its outer limit the
      event horizon. the existence of such objects was first
      proposed from theoretical considerations. because light
      cannot escape from such objects, they have not yet been
      detected with certainty 1998, but several "candidates"
      have been observed whose properties strongly suggest that
      they are black holes. some theorists suggest that the
      centers of many galaxies may have large black holes at
      their cores. see also escape velocity.
      pjc

   3. from the astronomical black hole. a place into which
      things may enter, but can never emerge. fig., jocose "he
      was so disorganized his office was a black hole."
      pjc
see also:
black hole of calcutta event horizon escape velocity 

[2] : WordNet (r) 2.0

black hole
     n : a region of space resulting from the collapse of a star;
         extremely high gravitational field

[3] : Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

85 moby thesaurus words for "black hole":
   beehive, cepheid variable, hertzsprung-russell diagram, hyades,
   messier catalog, ngc, pow camp, pleiades, seven sisters,
   absolute magnitude, bastille, binary star, borstal,
   borstal institution, bridewell, brig, cell, concentration camp,
   condemned cell, death cell, death house, death row, detention camp,
   double star, dwarf star, federal prison, fixed star,
   forced-labor camp, gaol, giant star, globular cluster,
   gravity star, guardhouse, house of correction, house of detention,
   industrial school, internment camp, jail, jailhouse, keep,
   labor camp, lockup, magnitude, main sequence star,
   mass-luminosity law, maximum-security prison,
   minimum-security prison, neutron star, nova, open cluster,
   oubliette, pen, penal colony, penal institution, penal settlement,
   penitentiary, populations, prison, prison camp, prisonhouse,
   pulsar, quasar, quasi-stellar radio source, radio star,
   red giant star, reform school, reformatory, relative magnitude,
   sky atlas, spectrum-luminosity diagram, sponging house, star,
   star catalog, star chart, star cloud, star cluster, state prison,
   stellar magnitude, stockade, supernova, the hole, tollbooth,
   training school, variable star, white dwarf star

[4] : Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001)

black hole n.,vt. common what data a piece of email or netnews, or a
   stream of tcp/ip packets has fallen into if it disappears mysteriously
   between its origin and destination sites that is, without returning a
   bounce message. "i think there's a black hole at foovax" conveys
   suspicion that site foovax has been dropping a lot of stuff on the floor
   lately see drop on the floor. the implied metaphor of email as
   interstellar travel is interesting in itself. readily verbed as
   `blackhole': "that router is blackholing idp packets." compare bit
   bucket and see rbl.


see also:
bounce message drop on the floor bit bucket rbl 

[5] : The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)

black hole
     
        1. an expression which depends on its own value or a technique
        to detect such expressions.  in graph reduction, when the
        reduction of an expression is begun, the root of the
        expression can be overwritten with a black hole.  if the
        expression depends on its own value, e.g.
     
        	x = x + 1
     
        then it will try to evaluate the black hole which will usually
        print an error message and abort the program.  a secondary
        effect is that, once the root of the expression has been
        black-holed, parts of the expression which are no longer
        required may be freed for garbage collection.
     
        without black holes the usual result of attempting to evaluate
        an expression which depends on itself would be a stack
        overflow.  if the expression is evaluated successfully then
        the black hole will be updated with the value.
     
        expressions such as
     
        	ones = 1 : ones
     
        are not black holes because the list constructor, : is lazy so
        the reference to ones is not evaluated when evaluating ones to
        whnf.
     
        2. where an electronic mail message or news aritcle has
        gone if it disappears mysteriously between its origin and
        destination sites without returning a bounce message.
        compare bit bucket.
     
        jargon file
     
     
see also:
electronic mail news bounce message bit bucket jargon file 

Black Hole >> B Words
Black Hole, definition of term: Black Hole
black+hole_pag1.html

Black >> B Words
Black, definition of term: Black
black_pag1.html

Black Flag >> B Words
Black Flag, definition of term: Black Flag
black+flag_pag1.html

Black Friday >> B Words
Black Friday, definition of term: Black Friday
black+friday_pag1.html

Black Diamond >> B Words
Black Diamond, definition of term: Black Diamond
black+diamond_pag1.html

Black Death >> B Words
Black Death, definition of term: Black Death
black+death_pag1.html

Black Gum >> B Words
Black Gum, definition of term: Black Gum
black+gum_pag1.html

Black Hawk >> B Words
Black Hawk, definition of term: Black Hawk
black+hawk_pag1.html

Black List >> B Words
Black List, definition of term: Black List
black+list_pag1.html

Black Jack >> B Words
Black Jack, definition of term: Black Jack
black+jack_pag1.html

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