Black

for mourning was a Roman custom (Juvenal, x. 245) borrowed from the Egyptians.

Black, in blazonry, means constancy, wisdom, and prudence.

Black, in several of the Oriental nations, is a badge of servitude, slavery, and low birth. Our word blackguard seems to point to this meaning. The Latin niger meant bad, unpropitious. (See Blackguard.)

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

Black

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