Meaning of black-and-white | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Of art, a photograph or photography, using shades of grey rather than shades of any other color.
2. Of a television or monitor, displaying images in shades of grey rather than color.
3. Classifying people, objects or concepts as two polar opposites, especially "right" and "wrong"; dichotomous and inflexible.
   figuratively, idiomatic

Equivalents

Examples

“The pseudo-community of enemies in The Day the Earth Stood Still consists of politicians, the military, and businessmen, whereas the pseudo-community of friends, the element that complements the enemies and reinforces the black-and-white morality of paranoia (Cameron, "Revisited" 56), is composed of scientists, women, and children.”

“2008, Linus Torvalds, [https://web.archive.org/web/20140805134937/http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/706950 Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10], LKML; quoted in: Bezpieczeństwo, Jacek Popławski, pl.comp.os.advocacy, Usenet Security people are often the black-and-white kind of people that I can't stand.”

““It's complicated. Not everything is black-and-white, Ginny. Sometimes, it's just gray.” The disillusionment in Ginny's eyes hurt bone-deep. She was a black-and-white kind of person. Actions were either right or wrong. No room for in-betweens.”

“You could say that inflexible thinking is black-and-white thinking and flexible thinking is rainbow thinking. Black-and-white thinkers have difficulty being flexible in their mind and seeing different possibilities and perspectives.”

CEFR level