whiteout
noun/ˈwaɪtˌaʊt/
Etymology Deverbal from white out.
7 senses
- 1A heavy snowstorm; a blizzard.
- 2Any weather condition in which visibility and contrast…
- 3Correction fluid (from the brand name Wite-Out).
- 4A sporting event where all in attendance are urged to…
- 5The simulated erasure of a file, etc. on a read-only volume.
- 6The suppression of a story by the media, analogously to…
- 7The silencing of voices and perspectives other than…
1
A heavy snowstorm; a blizzard.
2
Any weather condition in which visibility and contrast are severely reduced by snow or sand causing the horizon and physical features of the terrain to disappear.
- A whiteout can best be described as a paradoxical combination of being partially blind, but also being able to see illusions of things. It is like floundering in a sea of cotton; everything looks blurred and white.1979, Finn Ronne, Antarctica, My Destiny, Hastings House, →ISBN, page 136:
3
Correction fluid (from the brand name Wite-Out).
5
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences The simulated erasure of a file, etc. on a read-only volume.
6
The suppression of a story by the media, analogously to deleting information with correction fluid.
- Despite the media whiteout, we believe our weapon flashing had communicated the important political message that the nuclear mentality and the masculine mentality are intimately connected.1986, Atlantis - Volume 12, page 174:
- The slightest reference to national security is accepted as excuse enough for a news whiteout.1992, Mid-American Review - Volume 13, page 97:
2 more examples
- What, for example, have the protagonists of the First Amendment to say about the media whiteout in the United States on the work of such a distinguished radical as Noam Chomsky?1998, Ian Loveland, Importing the First Amendment:
- "Who Put the Black Face on Poverty," the show asked. Well, the mainstream media "whiteout" of the story provides a clue.1998, Extra!: The Newsletter of FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting)., page 8:
7
The silencing of voices and perspectives other than those of white people.
- While it represented a symbolic break from the “whiteout” on the US presidency, it was also, obviously, the most racialized campaign in American history.2012, H. Samy Alim, Geneva Smitherman, Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S., →ISBN:
- Closer to home, I thought about how that same “whiteout” existed in U.S. scholarship on television production and viewership and their cultural flows.2013, Beretta E. Smith-Shomade, Watching While Black: Centering the Television of Black Audiences, →ISBN:
1 more example
- We must return to a time where whiteout will no longer exist in our thinking process, and remember, black is not just a color but a totally different way of being.2015, Niinana Kweku, Whiteout, →ISBN: