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negra

black queen (chess); quarter note (music)

noun NEH-grah Rare

Usage Note

Negra as a standalone noun most commonly refers to the queen in chess when gendered female (la negra), or in music to a quarter note (crotchet in British English). The phrase tener la negra is an idiom meaning to have terrible luck — roughly equivalent to 'to be jinxed.' As an adjective negra simply means black (feminine form of negro).

Examples

"El pianista marcó el ritmo con la negra."

Natural Translation

The pianist marked the beat with the quarter note.

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