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Black box   Listen
noun
Black box  n.  
1.
Any electronic instrument or part of an instrument whose function is defined, but which is treated as a unit without consideration of the internal mechanisms; broadly, any device whose internal workings are considered as incomprehensible or mysterious by the user; as, to treat the meter as a black box and take its readings on faith.
2.
(aviation) A device which maintains a record of cockpit conversations and the readings of many of the instruments on board an aircraft, continuously or at frequent time intervals during a flight. It is of rugged design to withstand a violent crash, and is used to determine the causes of aircraft accidents. Note: They are often brightly colored to assist recovery, not actually black.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Black box" Quotes from Famous Books



... went up San Juan Hill. After all, he lived. He missed fifty years, perhaps, but he had Santiago. The flag wrapped him, he was the honored dead of the nation. God keep him! The Chaplain turned with a swing and raised his prayer-book to read the committal. The long black box—the boy was very tall—was being lowered gently, tenderly. Suddenly the heroic vision of Santiago vanished and he seemed to see again the rumpled head and the alert, eager, rosy face of the boy playing football—the head ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... data recorder was recovered as well. The first piece of equipment provided a tape recording of much that was said on the flight deck during a period of 30 minutes preceding the time of the collision with the ice slope. The second, often described as the "black box", provided conclusive information concerning course, altitude, and other data relating to the flight and functioning of the aircraft at the ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan

... there is no magic in the little black box. It is nothing but a child's plaything for the fat, spectacled idiot." (This part of the oration Frank did not communicate to Billy.) "You see I have smashed it. Do I fear? Do I look now like a man in terror of the white man's medicine. It is nothing. It is broken and gone like the cloud ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... Nothing. At least nothing to make so much of. Just laid my 'and on that black box of 'is—'adn't even opened it, when in 'e came and you 'eard the way 'e went on. I've lost my place, and glad I am of it, for I would never trust myself within reach of ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... them, my good girl. There is no need to brandish them in my face. Keep the jewel-case and give the rest of the things to the porter, and take him to look after the trunks. You remember which they are? The steamer trunk, the other trunk, the black box . . . Very well. Then make haste. And, when you've got them all together, tell the porter to find you a four-wheeler. The small things will go inside. Drive to the Savoy and ask for my suite. If they make any difficulty, ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... to betray innocent girls. A murder may be forgotten or the grief lessened, but the living death to which you sought to lead these girls is far worse than for their friends to have placed them in a black box and hauled them to ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... that big black box the Australian left in my room ever so long ago? ... I do think furs make a woman look old. ... That's Bechstein come in now. ... I was wondering what you looked like when you were a little boy, Jacob." She nibbled her roll and looked ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... hands are empty, he points with one finger to the box, where immediately appears a small white china bowl. Holding his empty hand over this bowl, some oranges and apples drop from his empty hand into the bowl. He removes the bowl from the black box, or cave, and hands its contents round to the audience. Receiving the bowl again, he tosses it into the cave, but it never reaches the floor—it ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... fiddling, and I stuck to it. I used to scrape at Cambridge, if you remember, as probably you don't, and had some goodish lessons there. Afterwards, when I got on the wander and took to pawning things, my spare shirt went frequently, but I always managed to stick to that little black box somehow. And I played on forecastle heads and on beaches and in sailors' lodgings ashore, and occasionally I got a week or so's lessons from a good man ashore; and then I heard concerts and good orchestras all up and down. And so, you see, I picked it up that way.... No, I don't ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... I will mention a little disgrace which happened to me within this circle of artists. I was well acquainted with all the pictures which had from time to time been brought into that room. My youthful curiosity left nothing unseen or unexplored. I once found a little black box behind the stove: I did not fail to investigate what might be concealed in it, and drew back the bolt without long deliberation. The picture contained was certainly of a kind not usually exposed to view; and, although I tried to bolt it again immediately, I was not quick enough. The ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... there, a mummy no more, but a pale, silent figure in its tatters of clothing. Loy Chuk put an odd, metal-fabric helmet on its head, and a second, much smaller helmet on his own. Connected with this arrangement, was a black box of many uses. For hours he worked with his apparatus, studying, and guiding the recording instruments. ...
— The Eternal Wall • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... time she began almost to think that she had imagined the black box altogether. Was it square or oblong? and how shallow was it? Sometimes while she was ill she had seen a black box as big as a house; sometimes it was a ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

... in eighteen-forty-one. Years after their death a little black box was found, containing four tiny scraps of paper, undiscovered by Charlotte when she burnt every line left by Anne and Emily except their poems. Two of these four papers were written by Emily, and two by Anne; each sister ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... was dated before she was taken ill:—"To be given to Margaret in case of my death. June 5th, 1848." They were my letters, and those which she had received from Harry Lothrop. On this envelop was written, "Put these into the black box he gave you." The gold pen-holder came into my hands also. Departure was engraved on the handle, and Laura's initials were cut in an emerald in its top. The black box was an ebony, gold-plated toy, which Harry Lothrop had given me at the same time Redmond gave Laura the pen-holder. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... follows, copied from the folio manuscript paper book, in the file of the treasury office, No. 3700, being a black box of tin containing, under lock and key, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... still early in the day when a lady arrived, in a cab from the railway, at the Sheep's Head Hotel. Her luggage consisted of a black box, and of a well-worn leather bag which she carried in her hand. The name on the box (recently written on a new luggage label, as the color of the ink and paper showed) was a very good name in its way, common to a very great number of ladies, both ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... worlds of space with it, instantly, at the same cosmic moment. Think of what it means, Ramsey, can you? Instantaneous travel, anywhere, without the need for energy since energy cannot be used here, without the passage of time since time does not exist here." She stood transfixed, looking at the black box. The lid had lifted at right angles to the ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance

... seat, stood on his toes and craned his neck through the diagonally opened transom. Before any of the waiters, who were busy clearing up the results of the last theatre raid, had a chance to notice him, Craig had slipped the little black box into the shadow ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... now noticed that Billy carried a black box under his arm, but until Jack had spoken of it ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh

... dismounted to take a picture of the snowy slope of Mt. Silverheels. Evidently Midget had never before seen a kodak. She watched with extraordinary interest the standing of the little three-legged affair upon the ground and the mounting of the small black box upon it. She pointed her ears at it; tilted her head to one side and moved her nose up and down. I moved away from her several feet to take the picture. She eyed the kodak with such intentness that I invited her to come ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... latter shut off a view of a seemingly boundless brickfield. Miss Nippett rented a top back room at number 19, where, on one Sunday afternoon, Mavis, being previously invited, went to tea. The little room was neat and clean; tea, a substantial meal, was served on the big black box which stood at the foot of Miss Nippett's bed. After tea, Miss Nippett showed, with much pride, her little treasures, which were chiefly pitiful odds and ends picked up upon infrequent excursions to Isle of Thanet watering-places. Her devotion to these brought a lump to Mavis's throat. After ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... being except Crooked Jack. What the Old Lady did with herself and how she put in her time was a puzzle the Spencervale people could not solve. The children believed she amused herself counting the gold in the big black box under her bed. Spencervale children held the Old Lady in mortal terror; some of them—the "Spencer Road" fry—believed she was a witch; all of them would run if, when wandering about the woods in search of berries or spruce gum, they saw at a distance ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... plan. Jon bellowed them in the startled man's ear as he stuffed the dismembered leg down the front of the man's baggy slacks. It had the desired effect, Coleman's finger stabbed at the button but stopped before it made contact. He stared down with bulging eyes at the little black box of death peeping out of ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison

... the room. It was scantily furnished, a table, four chairs, and a shelf along the wall constituting its equipment. On the shelf were a dozen or more bottles that looked as if they might contain chemicals; a square black box stood on the table and also a brass spring and what resembled a cord hanging from one side. Bob decided it was a bomb. From a nail in the center of the ceiling a small alligator was suspended by its tail. Bob recognized ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene

... slowly out into the pale radiance towards me. Silently, surely, as though my wish drew it by a rope, it floated nearer and nearer over the bosom of the tarn; and while it was still some twenty yards from me I saw it to be a long black box, shaped ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch



Words linked to "Black box" :   recorder, recording machine, recording equipment



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