blackout

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A temporary loss of consciousness.
2. (countable, uncountable)A temporary loss of memory.

   ““I mean, what is she even talking about? Got her pregnant at the Halloween party? What does that mean? I don't even remember that party. I was wasted.” “Yeah, me too. I browned out that evening.” “"browned out"? What's "browned out"?” “Oh, it's when you drink so much that everything goes brown. It's not as severe as a blackout, 'cause I remember bits and pieces. I like to call it "browning out."””

3. (countable, uncountable)A large-scale power failure, and resulting loss of electricity to consumers.

   “The repairs at the Koeberg Power Station in the Western Cape were on schedule for completion in the third week of May. This follows huge blackouts related to the problems at the power supplier since November.”

   “There have been several examples of space weather affecting power grids in the last few decades, notably blackouts caused by GICs [geomagnetically induced currents] in Canada in 1989 and Sweden in 2003.”

4. (countable, uncountable)An instance of censorship, especially a temporary one.

   “media blackout”

   “According to a press release issued by the clinic staff, a blackout by the local press had kept the public uninformed about the clinic's harassment.”

   “The protests have alarmed authorities, and on Thursday night, they shut off internet and mobile access in the country, cutting the Iranian people off from the rest of the world. Rights groups have accused the government of exploiting the media blackout to carry out a brutal crackdown against protesters.”

5. (Internet, countable, uncountable)An intentional outage of a website or other online service, typically as a form of protest.

   “the 2012 English Wikipedia blackout”

   “A group of Redditors, many of whom are moderators, organized a temporary boycott, with participating subreddits going private or restricted for 48 hours starting on Monday. A Twitch stream tracking the blackout claimed that nearly 8,500 subreddits, some with tens of millions of subscribers, had gone dark by Tuesday afternoon.”

6. (countable, historical, uncountable)The mandatory blocking of all light emanating from buildings, as well as outdoor and street lighting as a measure against aerial bombing or naval attack, as imposed during, e.g., World War II.

   “In co-operation with the Government departments, the British railway companies prepared their stations, offices, docks, hotels, trains, and other premises for the necessary blackout of lighting that it was realised would be required in a state of emergency, and in the case of the experimental voluntary blackouts which took place in July and August the railway companies concerned co-operated in every way possible.”

   “During the "blackout", many real cars and lorries had their front wings painted white, in order to avoid accidents.”

7. (attributive, countable, uncountable)The blocking out of as much light as possible.

   “blackout blinds; blackout curtains”

8. (countable, rare, slang, uncountable)A mass murder committed, usually in an urban area, to eliminate potential witnesses of a previous crime.

verb

1. (alt-of, alternative, nonstandard)Alternative form of black out.

   “Scouts assisted Mabel Smythe Building officials in blackouting windows.”

   “As blades in night's chest buried, Voraciously my eyes strike, the silent Warsaw evening, my city blackouted throughout...”

   “We had some inconvenience, such as food and petrol rationing, blackouting of homes and work places.”

   “'After recovering I 'blackouted' so much that I did not wake up until 10,000 ft below.' Zumbach's account, apart from the detailed description of his dogfight, also highlights the subject of the Polish pilots communicating in the air ...”

   “Sarla started weeping and rushed to pull Jagan up. Jagan had banged his head into a wall and blackouted for a few moments. As his vision returned, he saw all his writings that he had lovingly been collecting […]”