black art

noun

1. witchcraft; magic.

black art

noun

1. the black art
   another name for black magic

Word History and Origins

Origin of black art¹

First recorded in 1580–90

Example Sentences

He has said that during the day he was a scheduler but at night, he was "trafficking in the black arts."

From Salon

"All dental students are trained to make dentures but the black art of making them is being lost as they are not getting the practice," he says.

From BBC

These streets of mud, in which the dead were laid out, also swarmed with “a wicked generation of pretenders to magic, to the black art, as they called it.”

From New York Times

It is home to one of the city’s most enviable collections of 19th and 20th-century black art, at the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum.

From Washington Times

Vendors sold local black art and offered free paint and canvasses.

From Washington Post