different between niggerball vs blackball

English

Etymology

nigger +? ball

Noun

niggerball (countable and uncountable, plural niggerballs)

1. (South Africa, dated, countable) A large black gobstopper.
   • 1972, Contrast, Volume 8, South African Literary Journal

     Nigger-balls are the best sweets. You get four for a penny. When the black is sucked off you get pink and blue and blue-green, but you can't bite them until you've sucked them small or you'll chip your teeth.

   • 1979, Financial Mail

     That the words of Jeremy Taylor's Ag Pleez, Deddy have been changed to suit the times? No longer " … how we miss niggerballs and licorice … " but " … how we miss bullseyes and … " Ag pleez, Jeremy.
2. (uncountable, derogatory, offensive, ethnic slur) The sport of basketball.
   • 2002, "Lieberal Death", Your TV viewing for This Evening (on newsgroup rec.sport.pro-wrestling)

     It's easy to see how Amerika's so easily turning into a police state, give the unwashed masses their television and some niggerball and they'll ignore the fact that they're slaves.

   • 2004, H. A. Covington, A Distant Thunder

     […] two-hundred dollar tennis shoes named after some niggerball player […]

Usage notes

• Because of the term's offensive connotations, the sweets were renamed in the 1980s to blackballs.

See also

• jawbreaker

English

Etymology

black +? ball

Pronunciation

• enPR: bl?k'bôl', IPA^(key): /?blækb??l/

Noun

blackball (countable and uncountable, plural blackballs)

1. (countable) A rejection; a vote against admitting someone.
2. (countable) A black ball used to indicate such a negative vote.

3. (countable) A kind of large black sweet; a niggerball.
4. A substance for blacking shoes, boots, etc. or for taking impressions of engraved work.
5. (uncountable) A game, a standardized version of the English version of eight-ball.

   Synonym: reds and yellows

Verb

blackball (third-person singular simple present blackballs, present participle blackballing, simple past and past participle blackballed)

1. (transitive) To vote against, especially in an exclusive organization.
2. (transitive) To ostracize.

   Synonyms: blacklist, send to Coventry; see also Thesaurus:ignore, Thesaurus:boycott