Black Hole of Calcutta

British  

noun

1. a small dungeon in which in 1756 the Nawab of Bengal reputedly confined 146 English prisoners, of whom only 23 survived

2. informal any uncomfortable or overcrowded place

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Black Hole of Calcutta Cultural  

1. A cell in the jail of a British fort in Calcutta, India. In the middle of the eighteenth century, British and Indian troops clashed at the fort. The Indian troops drove a reported 146 defenders of the fort into the cell, which measured about fifteen by eighteen feet. Many had suffocated by the next morning.

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Example Sentences

A prisoner consigned to one might as well have been sent to the Black Hole of Calcutta with no escape, no recourse, no hope.

From New York Times • Apr. 10, 2018

Tay Rail Bridge collapse Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee British soldiers imprisoned in Black Hole of Calcutta The death toll was actually 75 when the bridge collapsed as a train crossed it.

From BBC • Jun. 27, 2012

For Walter O'Malley, Los Angeles is a sort of Garden of Eden and Black Hole of Calcutta rolled into one.

From Time Magazine Archive

The prison is no holiday camp, but it is not the Black Hole of Calcutta either.

From Time Magazine Archive

For most of them I might as well have been living in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

From "Hole in My Life" by Jack Gantos