They bought the stolen watch on the black market.
black market
idiomTrade that is in violation of restrictions, rationing, or price controls.
Origin
The phrase entered English in the early 1930s and spread during the Second World War, most likely as a translation of the German Schwarzmarkt — a 'black market' — alongside Schwärzer, a smuggler: words already used in the 1910s for illicit dealing. The 'black' carries its old association with the secret and the shady — trade done out of sight of the law.
Black markets tend to surface wherever a government bans a good or fixes its price. America's Prohibition in the 1920s bred a whole underground trade in smuggled and home-made liquor, and the wartime rationing of meat, sugar, and petrol in the 1940s pushed ordinary people toward sellers working 'off the books' — which is when the term entered everyday speech.
During the food shortage, some people turned to the black market to find basic supplies at higher prices.
The government struggled to regulate the economy while a thriving black market emerged to bypass the strict new trade restrictions.
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black babies
Third-world charities, the missions.
- 02
black day
A day of great disaster, misfortune or unhappiness.
- 03
black gold
Raw petroleum; crude oil.
- 04
black hat
A villain in a story, especially in a Western (a film or other work of the Western genre).
- 05
black mark
Something that negatively affects someone's reputation.
- 06
black out
To censor or cover up by writing over with black ink.
- 07
black over Bill's mother's
Describing rain-bearing dark clouds on the horizon.
- 08
black oxide
Any of several coatings for steels or copper; some are oxides (mainly iron(II,III) oxide), some are nitrites or nitrates, and some are selenides; all are black; the main purposes are the antireflective and cosmetic effects; the anticorrosion effects are small.