black belt
Americannoun
-
Martial Arts.
-
a black cloth waistband conferred upon a participant in one of the martial arts, as judo or karate, to indicate a degree of expertise of the highest rank.
-
a person who has obtained such rank
-
the rank itself.
-
-
a person proficient in some particular skill or endeavor; expert.
-
(initial capital letters) a narrow belt of dark-colored, calcareous soils in central Alabama and Mississippi highly adapted to agriculture, especially the growing of cotton.
-
(initial capital letters) the area of a city or region inhabited primarily by Black people.
noun
-
martial arts
-
a black belt worn by an instructor or expert competitor in the dan grades, usually from first to fifth dan
-
a person entitled to wear this
-
-
a region of the southern US extending from Georgia across central Alabama and Mississippi, in which the population contains a large number of Black people: also noted for its fertile black soil
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of black belt
First recorded in 1865–70
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He boasts of achieving a seventh-degree black belt in Keichu-do karate, a Cajun hodgepodge martial art developed by his biological father, Karl.
From Slate ● Jun. 29, 2026
Proof of concept: he's a black belt in judo and jiujitsu -- and also working on a PhD.
From Barron's ● Jun. 12, 2026
Robert Read said his 12-year-old son, Theodore, who earned a black belt just before Christmas, is happily following Blanck to the new dojo.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
Yumnam Khemchand Singh, a fifth-dan black belt in Korean martial art taekwondo, took oath last week, inheriting a state still scarred by clashes between the majority Meitei and the minority Kuki-Zo communities.
From BBC ● Feb. 10, 2026
He had a stomach so big that his thin black belt reminded me of the equator circling the globe.
From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
