blackball

Etymology

black + ball

noun

1. (countable) A rejection; a vote against admitting someone.
2. (countable) A black ball used to indicate such a negative vote.
   Regardless how many other people may have voted to approve a candidate for membership, a single blackball will reject the candidate.
3. (countable) A kind of large black sweet.
4. A substance for blacking shoes, boots, etc. or for taking impressions of engraved work.
5. (uncountable) A game, a standardized version of the English version of eight-ball.

verb

1. (transitive) To vote against, especially in an exclusive organization.
   If you're not from a moneyed, well-connected family, you can count on getting blackballed from the fraternity.
   Why, if I had known you all my life I should have grown up in the condition of Adam before the fall, and they would have blackballed me at the clubs. 1898, Willa Cather, The Westbound Train
2. (transitive) To ostracize.
   Henry knew. If he were blackballed by this distaff Mafia, he was doomed: Endless, but always justifiable, delays would occur in the work he wanted typed. 1968 July, Stan Dryer, “The Fully Automated Love Life of Henry Keanridge”, in Playboy Magazine, page 152