The article demonstrates the diversity of Black Lives Matter usage in modern
English and aims to describe its meaning in different types of contexts. The analysis of dictionary defi nitions showed that the English-language dictionaries fail to defi ne the morphological status of Black Lives Matter and overlook its pragmatic potential by simply providing encyclopedic information about the Black Lives Matter movement. Having studied the functioning of Black Lives Matter in context, we suggest a model of Black Lives Matter polysemy that reveals the mechanisms of semantic transfer and derivation, demonstrating how an original slogan becomes a proper name, which, in its turn, produces a common noun.