1564: Black and Schwartz Mar 27, 2019

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The word 'black' is strange not only because it is related to the words 'blanc' and 'blanco' meaning 'white', but also because it is not similar to that of most other Germanic languages. For instance, Dutch has 'zwart', Danish has 'sort', and German has 'schwartz', but English isn't totally left out in this regard. In some older or dialectal forms of English, 'swart' meaning dark—albeit not quite jet-black—and the more widespread though still not particularly common 'swarthy' meaning 'dark skinned'. Indeed, Old English had a word that sounded like this, so 'black' is something of a black sheep here.
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