Out of favor, disgraced. The term comes from actual listings of those to be censured or punished by the authorities, which date from the fifteenth century. The agents of Henry VIII, for example, compiled a black book of English monasteries listed as “sinful.” An eighteenth-century history of Oxford University also describes a proctor’s black book which, if one was listed in it, proscribed proceeding to a university degree. Today, however, one’s little black book may signify a personal address book, listing the telephone numbers of friends, especially those of the opposite sex.