: a usually complicated electronic device whose internal mechanism is usually hidden from or mysterious to the user
broadly: anything that has mysterious or unknown internal functions or mechanisms
2
: a crashworthy device in aircraft for recording cockpit conversations and flight data
3
: a device in an automobile that records information (such as speed, temperature, or gasoline efficiency) which can be used to monitor vehicle performance or determine a cause in the event of an accident
: being or containing a warning of a serious or life-threatening side effect (such as stroke or muscle damage) that is highlighted by a black border on a prescription drug's label or accompanying literature
Example Sentences
Noun The black boxes were recovered from the crash site and provided useful information about the cause of the crash.
Recent Examples on the Web
Adjective
The process and metrics for these organizations, like those for Gartner’s process and metrics for their Magic Quadrant positioning, are a bit of a black box. Grant Mcdougall, Forbes, 14 Oct. 2021 For the most part, the exact impact of legacy admissions on campus is a black box. Stephanie Saul, New York Times, 13 July 2022 The front page of Thursday’s edition of the Uvalde Leader-News was a solid black box, broken only by the date of the mass shooting that killed 19 little kids and two teachers: May 24, 2022.Los Angeles Times, 27 May 2022 The first black box, the cockpit voice recorder, was found on March 23, while the flight data recorder was found March 27. Gio Benitez, ABC News, 17 May 2022 Recovery crews found the first black box — the cockpit voice recorder — on Wednesday, per AP. Grayson Quay, The Week, 27 Mar. 2022 According to Xinhua, the search for the plane's black box, which holds its flight data and cockpit voice recorders, would be challenging and involve both drones and manual searching. Ryan W. Miller, USA TODAY, 22 Mar. 2022 The sectors act as a black box — fish quotas can be seen flowing in and out, but who exactly is leasing them is hidden. Will Sennott, ProPublica, 6 July 2022 The second black box tracks flight details from basic data such as airspeed, altitude, the status of smoke alarms and the position of the wing flaps, as well as the pilots’ inputs into the controls. Trefor Moss And Yang Jie, WSJ, 27 Mar. 2022 See More