black-and-white

See also: black and white

English

a black-and-white photo.

Alternative forms

black and white
black-or-white

Pronunciation

Audio (AU) (file)

Adjective

black-and-white (comparative more black-and-white, superlative most black-and-white)

Of art, a photograph or photography, using shades of grey/gray rather than colour/color.
Of a television or monitor, displaying images in shades of grey/gray rather than colour/color.
(figurative, idiomatic) Classifying people, objects or concepts as two polar opposites, especially "right" and "wrong"; dichotomous and inflexible.
- 1999, Cynthia Hendershot, Paranoia, the Bomb, and 1950s Science Fiction Films, Popular Press, →ISBN, page 28:
  The pseudo-community of enemies in The Day the Earth Stood Still consists of politicians, the military, and businessmen, whereas the pseudo-community of friends, the element that complements the enemies and reinforces the black-and-white morality of paranoia (Cameron, "Revisited" 56), is composed of scientists, women, and children.
- 2008, Linus Torvalds, Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, LKML; quoted in: Bezpieczeństwo, Jacek Popławski, pl.comp.os.advocacy, Usenet
  Security people are often the black-and-white kind of people that I can't stand.
- 2011, Sandra Orchard, Deep Cover, Harlequin, →ISBN, page 144:
  “It's complicated. Not everything is black-and-white, Ginny. Sometimes, it's just gray.” The disillusionment in Ginny's eyes hurt bone-deep. She was a black-and-white kind of person. Actions were either right or wrong. No room for in-betweens.
- 2011, Aileen Zeitz Collucci, Big Picture Thinking: Using Central Coherence Theory to Support Social Skills : a Book for Students, AAPC Publishing, →ISBN, page 82:
  You could say that inflexible thinking is black-and-white thinking and flexible thinking is rainbow thinking. Black-and-white thinkers have difficulty being flexible in their mind and seeing different possibilities and perspectives.
Alternative form of black and white (easily divided into diametrically opposing camps)

Synonyms

(art/photograph/photography): monochrome (compare grayscale, greyscale)

Antonyms

(art/photograph/photography): colour/color
(television/monitor): colour/color

Derived terms

black-and-white ruffed lemur
black-and-white television
in black and white

Translations

using shades of grey/gray

Czech: černobílý (cs)
Esperanto: nigrblanka
Finnish: mustavalko-, mustavalkoinen (fi)
French: noir et blanc (fr)
German: schwarzweiß (de), monochrome (de)
Greek: ασπρόμαυρος (el) m (asprómavros)
Hungarian: fekete-fehér (hu)
Japanese: 黒白 (ja) (くろしろ, kuroshiro), 白黒 (ja) (しろくろ, shirokuro)
Korean: 흑백 (ko) (heukbaek)
Norwegian:
Bokmål: svarthvit, svartkvit
Nynorsk: svartkvit
Polish: czarno-biały (pl), monochromatyczny (pl)
Portuguese: preto e branco
Romanian: alb și negru
Russian: чёрно-бе́лый (ru) (čórno-bélyj)
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: црно-бело
Roman: crno-belo
Spanish: blanco y negro
Swedish: svartvit (sv)
Turkish: siyah beyaz (tr)
Ukrainian: чорно-білий (čorno-bilyj)
Vietnamese: mực đen, một màu

displaying images in shades of grey/gray

Basque: zuribeltz, monokromatiko
Chinese:
Mandarin: 黑白 (zh) (hēibái)
Czech: černobílý (cs)
Esperanto: negroblanka
Finnish: mustavalko-
French: noir et blanc (fr)
German: schwarzweiß (de), monochrome (de)
Japanese: 白黒 (ja) (しろくろ, shirokuro)
Lithuanian: nespalvotas
Norwegian:
Bokmål: svarthvit, svartkvit
Nynorsk: svartkvit
Polish: czarno-biały (pl), monochromatyczny (pl)
Portuguese: preto e branco
Russian: чёрно-бе́лый (ru) (čórno-bélyj)
Spanish: blanquinegro
Swedish: svartvit (sv)
Ukrainian: чорно-білий (čorno-bilyj)
Vietnamese: trắng đen, đen trắng

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

Hebrew: ^{(please verify)} שחור־לבן‎ (shakhor-lavan)