black box vs mode

black box

noun
  • Any similar device on motor vehicles, such as rail event recorders and ship trip recorders. 

  • A flight recorder; the brightly colored cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders in an aircraft designed to aid in determining the cause of an accident. 

  • A device used in phreaking that prevents the calling party from being billed for the call placed. 

  • A type of theater characterized by a lack of decoration or complex mechanisms. 

  • A theoretical construct or device with known input and output characteristics but unknown method of operation. 

verb
  • To focus on the inputs and outputs without worrying about the internal complexity. 

mode

noun
  • A series of settings on a device used for a specific purpose. 

  • The openwork between the solid parts of a pattern. 

  • A verb form that depends on how its containing clause relates to the speaker’s or writer’s wish, intent, or assertion about reality. 

  • The most frequently occurring value in a distribution 

  • A variation in gameplay, such as a difficulty level. 

  • One of several common scales in modern Western music, one of which corresponds to the modern major scale and one to the natural minor scale. 

  • Style or fashion; popular trend. 

  • That which exists only as a quality of substance. 

  • One of various related sets of rules for processing data; more generally, any state of the system associated with certain behaviours. 

  • A particular means of accomplishing something. 

  • One of several ancient Greek scales. 

  • A particular state of being, or frame of mind. 

  • A state of a system that is represented by an eigenfunction of that system. 

  • In lace-making, a small decorative piece inserted into a pattern. 

How often have the words black box and mode occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )