black box vs sham

black box

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

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

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

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

sham

noun
  • A false front, or removable ornamental covering. 

  • A decorative cover for a pillow. 

  • Trickery, hoaxing. 

  • A fake; an imitation that purports to be genuine. 

  • Champagne. 

adj
  • mock 

  • Intended to deceive; false. 

  • counterfeit; unreal 

  • See also Thesaurus:fake 

verb
  • To obtrude by fraud or imposition. 

  • To deceive, cheat, lie. 

  • To assume the manner and character of; to imitate; to ape; to feign. 

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