black swan
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black swan
- /blæk ˈswɒn/ UK
- /blæk ˈswɑn/ US
Rhymes with -ɒn
Where it comes from
From Middle English blak swan, calqued from a Latin quotation from Satire VI (written late 1st century – early 2nd century B.C.E.) of the Roman poet Juvenal: “Rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno [a bird as rare upon the earth as a black swan]!”. Equivalent to black + swan.
Sense 2.1 (“something believed impossible or not to exist”) is from the fact that all swans were thought to have white plumage until black swans were discovered in Australia in the 17th century by Dutch explorers. Sense 2.2 (“rare and hard-to-predict event”) was popularized by the Lebanese-American author Nassim Nicholas Taleb (born 1960) in his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007): see the quotation.
noun black swans
- Cygnus atratus, a swan with black plumage and a red bill which is endemic to Australia. Mankind were wrong, it seems, in concluding that all swans were white: are we also wrong, when we conclude that all men's heads grow above their shoulders, and never below, in spite of the conflicting testimony of the naturalist Pliny? As there were black swans, though civilised people had existed f
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Something believed impossible or not to exist, especially if an example is subsequently found; also, something extremely rare; a rara avis.
I do but ſpeake in the perſon of Demetrius, & vnder Hippolita ſhadovv vvhat I intend to the rare, and neuer enough vvondred at Moſpa, the black ſvvan of beauty, & madg-hovvled of admiration.
Similar: rare bird, rarity, unicorn, black swan, hen's tooth, lightning in a bottle, one in a million, rara avis, rocking horse shit
- A rare and hard-to-predict event with major consequences. A small number of Black Swans explain almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives. […] Fads, epidemics, fashion, ideas, the emergence of art genres and schools. All follow these Black Swan dynami
Translations
Every language
noun Cygnus atratus
| Español | cisne negro |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 흑고니 heukgoni |
| 日本語 | 黒鳥 |
| 中文 | 黑天鵝 /黑天鹅 hēitiān'é |
| हिन्दी | काला हंस kālā hans |
| Português | cisne-negro |
| Français | cygne noir |
| Deutsch | Trauerschwan |
| Italiano | cigno nero |
| Ελληνικά | μαύρος κύκνος mávros kýknos |
| Română | lebădă neagră |
| Русский | чёрный ле́бедь čórnyj lébedʹ |
| Tiếng Việt | thiên nga đen |
| العربية | تَمّ أَسْوَد tamm ʔaswad |
| עברית | ברבור שחור |
noun something believed impossible or not to exist, especially if an example is subsequently found
| Español | mirlo blanco |
|---|---|
| 中文 | 黑天鵝 /黑天鹅 hēitiān'é |
| Français | cygne noir |
| Italiano | mosca bianca |
| Română | leprechaun |
noun rare and hard-to-predict event with major consequences
| 中文 | 黑天鵝 /黑天鹅 hēitiān'é |
|---|
Talk about this word "black swan." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/black%20swan. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. black swan. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/black%20swan "black swan." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/black%20swan.Cite this
@misc{black_swan_2026,
title = {black swan},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/black%20swan},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
