black box

• blackbox

• Since circa 1945 in both main senses (that is, event recorders and objects with unknown innards), which are historically related to each other; for details, see black box § History and flight recorder § Terminology.
• (type of theater): Such theaters are often painted black.

black box (plural black boxes)

1. (informal, aviation) A flight recorder; the brightly colored cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders in an aircraft designed to aid in determining the cause of an accident.

   scrutinizing all utterances recorded by the black box

2. (transport, by extension) Any similar device on motor vehicles, such as rail event recorders and ship trip recorders.

   Hyponyms: tachograph, tacho

   the pilothouse's analogue of an airliner's black box

3. A theoretical construct or device with known input and output characteristics but unknown method of operation.

   The authentication method and its details can be treated as a black box for purposes of this security architecture overview.

4. A device used in phreaking that prevents the calling party from being billed for the call placed.
5. (drama) A type of theater characterized by a lack of decoration or complex mechanisms.

• (trip recorder): event recorder, trip recorder
• opaque box

• box

(trip recorder):

(trip recorder):

(colored boxes, especially electronic ones):

• (event recorder): black box insurance
• (theoretical construct or device): black-box testing, black body
• (mysterious production of output): black magic
• (blackened rectangle): black box warning

black box (third-person singular simple present black boxes, present participle black boxing, simple past and past participle black boxed)

1. (web development) To focus on the inputs and outputs without worrying about the internal complexity.