Black-collar
adj, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Of or pertaining to employment in the black market; that is, to engagement in illicit trade or distribution of untaxed goods and services. not-comparable, rare
"Rewards necessarily drop for the former — not only because their numbers increase relatively but also because their output per man-hour does not rise as rapidly as that of the black-collar worker."
- 2 Relating to creative work. not-comparable, slang
"black-collar worker"
- 3 Relating to coalminers and oil workers. not-comparable
"Even if you add to this the 4200 jobs created each year by the energy-efficiency measures for which the Rudd government claims credit, it is completely negated by the ‘black-collar’ jobs being added as Queensland and New South Wales expand coal exports."
- 4 Relating to the clergy. not-comparable, rare
"This is scarcely the first crisis involving what an Australian victims' group, Broken Rites, has termed black-collar crime. But never before has a scandal cast doubts on the judgment and authority of a pope."
Example
More examples"Rewards necessarily drop for the former — not only because their numbers increase relatively but also because their output per man-hour does not rise as rapidly as that of the black-collar worker."
Etymology
From black market and -collar.
More for "black-collar"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.