Darkness
Darkness
#421. Darkness. -- N. darkness &c. adj., absence of light; blackness
&c. (dark color) 431; obscurity, gloom, murk; dusk &c. (dimness) 422.
- Cimmerian darkness[obs], Stygian darkness, Egyptian darkness; night;
midnight; dead of night, witching hour of night, witching time of night;
blind man's holiday; darkness visible, darkness that can be felt; palpable
obscure; Erebus[Lat]; "the jaws of darkness " [Midsummer Night's Dream];
"sablevested night " [Milton].
- shade, shadow, umbra, penumbra; sciagraphy[obs].
- obscuration; occultation, adumbration, obumbration[obs];
obtenebration[obs], offuscation|, caligation|; extinction; eclipse, total
eclipse; gathering of the clouds.
- shading; distribution of shade; chiaroscuro &c. (light) 420.
- noctivagation[obs].
- [perfectly black objects] black body; hohlraum[Phys]; black hole; dark
star; dark matter, cold dark matter.
- V. be dark &c. adj.
- darken, obscure, shade; dim; tone down, lower; overcast, overshadow;
eclipse; obfuscate, offuscate|; obumbrate[obs], adumbrate; cast into the
shade becloud, bedim[obs], bedarken[obs]; cast a shade, throw a shade,
spread a shade, cast a shadow, cast a gloom, throw a shadow, spread a
shadow, cast gloom, throw gloom, spread gloom.
- extinguish; put out, blow out, snuff out; doubt.
- turn out the lights, douse the lights, dim the lights, turn off the
lights, switch off the lights.
- Adj. dark, darksome[obs], darkling; obscure, tenebrious[obs],
sombrous[obs], pitch dark, pitchy, pitch black; caliginous[obs]; black
&c. (in color) 431.
- sunless, lightless &c. (see sun[obs], light, &c. 423); somber, dusky;
unilluminated &c. (see illuminate &c. 420)[obs]; nocturnal; dingy, lurid,
gloomy; murky, murksome[obs]; shady, umbrageous; overcast &c. (dim) 422;
cloudy &c. (opaque) 426; darkened; &c. v.
- dark as pitch, dark as a pit, dark as Erebus[Lat].
- benighted; noctivagant!|, noctivagous!|.
- Adv. in the dark, in the shade.
- Phr. " brief as the lightning in the collied night " [M. N. D.]; "
eldest Night and Chaos, ancestors of Nature " [P. L.]; " the blackness of
the noonday night " [Longfellow]; " the prayer of Ajax was for light "
[Longfellow].