niger

Niger, nigra, nigrum, first-and-second declension. The e of the masculine nominative is a prop and drops out everywhere else: nigri, nigro, nigrum, nigrorum. Comparative nigrior, superlative nigerrimus with the doubled r.

Latin has two blacks and they are not the same. Niger is glossy, lustrous black - hair, a raven, polished stone. Ater is dull, dead black, and it takes the moral weight: an atra dies is a day of disaster, an ater animus a malignant one. Poets blur the line, but prose usually keeps it. Italian nero, Spanish negro and French noir all descend from niger, and English takes denigrate, literally to blacken, and negro through Spanish.