Often referred to as Black Friday in the US, the Friday after Thanksgiving marks the start of the Christmas and holiday shopping season, during which crowds of consumers are drawn to retailers offering special deals.

在美国，感恩节后的第一个星期五常被叫作“黑色星期五”，这一天标志着圣诞节和假日购物季的开端，成群结队的顾客会被各大零售商的特价商品所吸引。

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the day after Thanksgiving has been called black Friday since at least the early 1960s. The explanation typically given for the day’s name is that it is the first day of the year that retailers are in the black as opposed to being in the red. In other words, the day is the first of the year that retailers have turned a profit. The use of colors here refers back to the bookkeeping practice of recording the credit side of an account in a ledger in black ink and the debit side in red ink. Thanks to the volume of sales on Black Friday, retailers are – notionally at least – in the black after the holiday shopping rush.

根据《牛津英语词典》的记载，自从二十世纪六十年代早期以来，感恩节后的那天就一直被称作“黑色星期五”。对此，比较常见的解释是：这一天是零售商们一年当中第一天财务报表上是黑色的，而不是相反的红色。换句话说，这一天，是零售商们一年当中第一天盈利的日子。这里的颜色是指财务上的记账的方式，黑色代表盈利，红色代表亏损。由于黑色星期五这天的销售量很大，零售商们在购物季结束之后都是盈利的——至少理论上是这样的。

However, the black ink explanation is probably not the origin of the term. The more likely story is that ‘Black Friday’ started out as a joking reference to how bad the traffic would be on this day. Due to the influx of enthusiastic shoppers into city centers, the congestion was the worst that it would be all year. Early citations in the OED indicate that the term may have originated among police officers and bus drivers, who no doubt would have dreaded this traffic-heavy day. The use of this term seems to have started in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, before spreading to other areas of the country. In this instance of ‘Black Friday,’ the word 'black' refers to a situation that is “characterized by tragic or disastrous events” or “causing despair or pessimism,” although the use is understood as being humorous.

然而，财务上用黑色代表盈利的这种解释，很可能不是“黑色星期五”一词的真正来源。更为可能的来源是：“黑色星期五”一开始是被用作玩笑话，用来代指感恩节后的那天交通状况会极为糟糕。因为当天有大量狂热的顾客涌入市中心，所以路上的拥堵就成了一年当中最为严重的了。《牛津英语词典》早期的引文表明，“黑色星期五”可能是在警察和公交司机当中传播开来的，因为他们无疑是很害怕交通如此堵塞的那一天的。这个词语的使用好像是从宾夕法尼亚的费城开始的，然后就传播到美国的其他地方去了。在这个“黑色星期五”的缘起事例中，“黑色”一词是指“有悲剧性或灾难性事件发生的场合”，或者“会导致绝望或悲观情绪的情况”，尽管该词语的使用是被理解为一种诙谐的说法。