blackball

name

1. A small town in Grey district, West Coast, New Zealand, with a history of gold and coal mining.

noun

Etymology: From black + ball.

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

   “Regardless how many other people may have voted to approve a candidate for membership, a single blackball will reject the candidate.”

3. A kind of large black sweet, a black-colored gobstopper.
4. A substance for blacking shoes, boots, etc. or for taking impressions of engraved work.
5. A game, a standardized version of the English version of eight-ball.

verb

Etymology: From black + ball.

1. To vote against, especially in an exclusive organization.

   “If you're not from a moneyed, well-connected family, you can count on getting blackballed from the fraternity.”

   “Why, if I had known you all my life I should have grown up in the condition of Adam before the fall, and they would have blackballed me at the clubs.”

2. To ostracize.

   “Henry knew. If he were blackballed by this distaff Mafia, he was doomed: Endless, but always justifiable, delays would occur in the work he wanted typed.”

   “My father sure could have used a union. The monopoly that controlled the bank vault installation business blackballed him when he was in his late fifties because he'd gone to work for a rival company that immediately went belly-up. If he'd been in a union he'd have got his job back."”