Dark

• POS: Adjective, Noun, Verb (usu participle)

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Dark, adj. & n.
--adj.
1 with little or no light.
2 of a deep or sombre colour.
3 (of a person) with deep brown or black hair, complexion, or skin.
4 gloomy, depressing, dismal (dark thoughts).
5 evil, sinister (dark deeds).
6 sullen, angry (a dark mood).
7 remote, secret, mysterious, little-known (the dark and distant past; keep it dark).
8 ignorant, unenlightened.
--n.
1 absence of light.
2 nightfall (don't go out after dark).
3 a lack of knowledge.
4 a dark area or colour, esp. in painting (the skilled use of lights and darks).

Idiom

the Dark Ages (or Age)
1 the period of European history preceding the Middle Ages, esp. the 5th-10th c.
2 any period of supposed unenlightenment. the Dark Continent a name for Africa, esp. when little known to Europeans. dark glasses spectacles with dark-tinted lenses. dark horse a little-known person who is unexpectedly successful or prominent. dark star an invisible star known to exist from reception of physical data other than light. in the dark lacking information.

Derivative

darkish adj. darkly adv. darkness n. darksome poet. adj.

Etymology

OE deorc prob. f. Gmc

THESAURUS

Dark

Egyptian darkness, Erebus, Gothicism, Stygian, ableptical, abominable, abstruse, adiaphanous, age of ignorance, amaurotic, amoral, amorphous, amorphousness, apocalyptic, arcane, arrant, atramentous, atrocious, bad, baleful, baneful, barbarism, base, beamless, beetle-browed, benighted, benightedness, benightment, bereft of light, black, black as coal, black as ebony, black as ink, black as midnight, black as night, black-browed, black-skinned, blackish, blackness, blamable, blameworthy, bleak, blear, bleared, bleary, blind, blurred, blurry, bodeful, boding, brown, brunet, cabalistic, caliginous, castellatus, censored, cheerless, cirrose, cirrous, classified, clear as mud, close, closed, closemouthed, cloud-flecked, clouded, cloudy, coal-black, coaly, color-blind, colored, complicated, concealed, confused, conscienceless, corrupt, corrupted, criminal, crooked, cryptic, cumuliform, cumulous, damnable, dark age, dark as night, dark as pitch, dark-colored, dark-complexioned, dark-skinned, darkish, darkling, darkness, darkness visible, darksome, dead of night, deep, deep black, dejected, devilish, devious, dim, dim-sighted, dire, dirty, discreet, disgraceful, dishonest, dishonorable, dismal, doleful, doomful, doubtful, dour, drab, drear, drearisome, dreary, dubious, dull, dumpish, dun, dusk, dusky, ebon, ebony, eclipsed, enigmatic, esoteric, evasive, evil, evil-starred, execrable, eyeless, faint, fateful, feeble, felonious, filmy, fishy, flagitious, flagrant, fog, fogginess, foggy, foreboding, foul, fraudulent, frowning, funebrial, funereal, fuzziness, fuzzy, gloom, gloominess, gloomy, glowering, glum, grave, gray, grim, grum, grumly, half-seen, half-visible, hazy, heathenism, heavy, heinous, hellish, hemeralopic, hermetic, hidden, hush-hush, ignorance, ignorant, ill, ill-boding, ill-defined, ill-fated, ill-got, ill-gotten, ill-lighted, ill-lit, ill-omened, ill-starred, immoral, impenetrable, impervious to light, improper, in darkness, in the dark, inauspicious, incomprehensible, inconspicuous, indefinite, indeterminate, indeterminateness, indirect, indistinct, indistinctness, indistinguishable, infamous, iniquitous, ink-black, inky, insidious, intense darkness, intransparent, intricate, jetty, joyless, knavish, knotty, latent, lenticularis, lightlessness, low, low-profile, lowering, mammatus, melancholy, melanian, melanic, melanistic, melano, melanotic, melanous, menacing, merely glimpsed, midnight, mind-blind, mist, mistiness, misty, monstrous, moodish, moody, moonlessness, mopey, moping, mopish, morose, mournful, muddy, mumbo jumbo, mumpish, murk, murkiness, murky, mysterious, mystic, mystical, mystification, mystifying, naughty, nebulous, nefarious, night, night-black, night-clad, night-cloaked, night-dark, night-enshrouded, night-filled, night-mantled, night-veiled, nightfall, nigrescent, nigrous, nimbose, not kosher, nubilous, nyctalopic, obfuscated, obfuscation, obscurantism, obscuration, obscure, obscure darkness, obscured, obscurity, occult, occulted, of evil portent, ominous, opacity, opaque, out of focus, overcast, overclouded, paganism, pale, peccant, perplexity, pessimistic, pitch-black, pitch-dark, pitch-darkness, pitchy, pitchy darkness, portending, profound, puzzling, questionable, rank, raven, raven-black, rayless, recondite, reprehensible, reprobate, restricted, roiled, roily, rotten, sable, sad, satanic, saturnine, savagery, scandalous, scowling, secret, secretive, semivisible, shadowy, shady, shameful, shameless, shapeless, shapelessness, shifty, sightless, sinful, sinister, slippery, sloe, sloe-black, sloe-colored, smothered, sober, solemn, somber, sombrous, sorrowful, spiritually blind, squally, stark blind, starless, starlessness, stifled, stone-blind, stormy, stratiform, stratous, subfusc, sulky, sullen, sunless, sunlessness, suntanned, suppressed, surly, suspicious, swart, swarth, swarthiness, swarthy, tar-black, tarry, tenebrious, tenebrose, tenebrosity, tenebrous, tenebrousness, the palpable obscure, threatening, thunderheaded, top secret, total darkness, transcendent, tricky, triste, turbid, ulterior, unbreatheable, uncertain, unclarity, unclear, unclearness, uncommunicative, unconscienced, unconscientious, unconscionable, undefined, under security, under wraps, underhand, underhanded, undiscerning, undisclosable, undisclosed, undivulgable, undivulged, unenlightened, unenlightenment, unethical, unfathomable, unfavorable, unforgivable, unfortunate, unilluminated, unlighted, unlit, unlucky, unobserving, unpardonable, unperceiving, unplain, unplainness, unprincipled, unpromising, unpropitious, unrecognizable, unrevealable, unrevealed, unsavory, unscrupulous, unseeing, unspeakable, unspoken, unstraightforward, untellable, untold, untoward, unutterable, unuttered, unwhisperable, unworthy, vague, vagueness, velvet darkness, vicious, vile, villainous, visionless, weak, weariful, wearisome, weary, wicked, without remorse, without shame, wrong

ROGET THESAURUS

Dark

Dejection

N dejection, dejectedness, depression, prosternation, lowness of spirits, depression of spirits, weight on the spirits, oppression on the spirits, damp on the spirits, low spirits, bad spirits, drooping spirits, depressed spirits, heart sinking, heaviness of heart, failure of heart, heaviness, infestivity, gloom, weariness, taedium vitae, disgust of life, mal du pays, anhedonia, melancholy, sadness, il penseroso, melancholia, dismals, blues, lachrymals, mumps, dumps, blue devils, doldrums, vapors, megrims, spleen, horrors, hypochondriasis, pessimism, la maladie sans maladie, despondency, slough of Despond, disconsolateness, hope deferred, blank despondency, voiceless woe, prostration of soul, broken heart, despair, cave of despair, cave of Trophonius demureness, gravity, solemnity, long face, grave face, hypochondriac, seek sorrow, self-tormentor, heautontimorumenos, malade imaginaire, medecin tant pis, croaker, pessimist, mope, mopus, affliction, sorry sight, memento mori, damper, wet blanket, Job's comforter, cheerless, joyless, spiritless, uncheerful, uncheery, unlively, unhappy, melancholy, dismal, somber, dark, gloomy, triste, clouded, murky, lowering, frowning, lugubrious, funereal, mournful, lamentable, dreadful, dreary, flat, dull, dull as a beetle, dull as ditchwater, depressing, melancholy as a gib cat, oppressed with melancholy, a prey to melancholy, downcast, downhearted, down in the mouth, down in one's luck, heavy-hearted, in the dumps, down in the dumps, in the suds, in the sulks, in the doldrums, in doleful dumps, in bad humor, sullen, mumpish, dumpish, mopish, moping, moody, glum, sulky, out of sorts, out of humor, out of heart, out of spirits, ill at ease, low spirited, in low spirits, a cup too low, weary, discouraged, disheartened, desponding, chapfallen, chopfallen, jaw fallen, crest fallen, sad, pensive, penseroso, tristful, dolesome, doleful, woebegone, lacrymose, lachrymose, in tears, melancholic, hypped, hypochondriacal, bilious, jaundiced, atrabilious, saturnine, splenetic, lackadaisical, serious, sedate, staid, stayed, grave as a judge, grave as an undertaker, grave as a mustard pot, sober, sober as a judge, solemn, demure, grim, grim-faced, grim-visaged, rueful, wan, long-faced, disconsolate, unconsolable, inconsolable, forlorn, comfortless, desolate, desole, sick at heart, soul sick, heart sick, au desespoir, in despair, lost, overcome, broken down, borne down, bowed down, heartstricken, cut up, dashed, sunk, unnerved, unmanned, down fallen, downtrodden, broken-hearted, careworn, with a long face, with tears in one's eyes, sadly, the countenance falling, the heart failing, the heart sinking within one, a plague of sighing and grief, thick-ey'd musing and curs'd melancholy, the sickening pang of hope deferred.

Hopelessness

N hopelessness, despair, desperation, despondency, depression, pessimism, pessimist, Job's comforter, bird of bad omen, bird of ill omen, abandonment, desolation, resignation, surrender, submission, hope deferred, dashed hopes, vain expectation, airy hopes &c, forlorn hope, gone case, dead duck, gone coon, goner, bad job, bad business, enfant perdu, gloomy horizon, black spots in the horizon, slough of Despond, cave of Despair, immedicabile vulnus, hopeless, desperate, despairing, gone, in despair, au desespoir, forlorn, desolate, inconsolable, broken hearted, unpromising, unpropitious, inauspicious, ill-omened, threatening, clouded over, out of the question, not to be thought of, impracticable, past hope, past cure, past mending, past recall, at one's last gasp, given up, given over, incurable, cureless, immedicable, remediless, beyond remedy, incorrigible, irreparable, irremediable, irrecoverable, irreversible, irretrievable, irreclaimable, irredeemable, irrevocable, ruined, undone, immitigable, lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate, its days are numbered, the worst come to the worst, no change, no pause, no hope, yet I endure, O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, mene mene tekel upharson, hopelessness, despair, desperation, despondency, depression, pessimism, pessimist, Job's comforter, bird of bad omen, bird of ill omen, abandonment, desolation, resignation, surrender, submission, hope deferred, dashed hopes, vain expectation, airy hopes &c, forlorn hope, gone case, dead duck, gone coon, goner, bad job, bad business, enfant perdu, gloomy horizon, black spots in the horizon, slough of Despond, cave of Despair, immedicabile vulnus, hopeless, desperate, despairing, gone, in despair, au desespoir, forlorn, desolate, inconsolable, broken hearted, unpromising, unpropitious, inauspicious, ill-omened, threatening, clouded over, out of the question, not to be thought of, impracticable, past hope, past cure, past mending, past recall, at one's last gasp, given up, given over, incurable, cureless, immedicable, remediless, beyond remedy, incorrigible, irreparable, irremediable, irrecoverable, irreversible, irretrievable, irreclaimable, irredeemable, irrevocable, ruined, undone, immitigable, lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate, its days are numbered, the worst come to the worst, no change, no pause, no hope, yet I endure, O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, mene mene tekel upharson.

Improbity

N improbity, dishonesty, dishonor, deviation from rectitude, disgrace, fraud, lying, bad faith, Punic faith, mala fides, Punica fides, infidelity, faithlessness, Judas kiss, betrayal, breach of promise, breach of trust, breach of faith, prodition, disloyalty, treason, high treason, apostasy, nonobservance, shabbiness, villainy, villany, baseness, abjection, debasement, turpitude, moral turpitude, laxity, trimming, shuffling, perfidy, perfidiousness, treachery, double dealing, unfairness, knavery, roguery, rascality, foul play, jobbing, jobbery, graft, bribery, venality, nepotism, corruption, job, shuffle, fishy transaction, barratry, sharp practice, heads I win tails you lose, mouth honor, dishonest, dishonorable, unconscientious, unscrupulous, fraudulent, knavish, disgraceful, wicked, false-hearted, disingenuous, unfair, one-sided, double, double- hearted, double-tongued, double-faced, timeserving, crooked, tortuous, insidious, Machiavelian, dark, slippery, fishy, perfidious, treacherous, perjured, infamous, arrant, foul, base, vile, ignominious, blackguard, contemptible, unrespectable, abject, mean, shabby, little, paltry, dirty, scurvy, scabby, sneaking, groveling, scrubby, rascally, pettifogging, beneath one, low-minded, low-thoughted, base-minded, undignified, indign, unbecoming, unbeseeming, unbefitting, derogatory, degrading, infra dignitatem, beneath one's dignity, ungentlemanly, ungentlemanlike, unknightly, unchivalric, unmanly, unhandsome, recreant, inglorious, corrupt, venal, debased, mongrel, faithless, of bad faith, false, unfaithful, disloyal, untrustworthy, trustless, trothless, lost to shame, dead to honor, barratrous, dishonestly, mala fide, like a thief in the night, by crooked paths, Int, O tempora!, O mores!, corruptissima respublica plurimae leges.

Darkness

N darkness, absence of light, blackness, obscurity, gloom, murk, dusk, Cimmerian darkness, 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, the jaws of darkness, sablevested night, shade, shadow, umbra, penumbra, sciagraphy, obscuration, occultation, adumbration, obumbration, obtenebration, offuscation, caligation, extinction, eclipse, total eclipse, gathering of the clouds, shading, distribution of shade, chiaroscuro, noctivagation, black body, hohlraum, black hole, dark star, dark matter, cold dark matter, dark, darksome, darkling, obscure, tenebrious, sombrous, pitch dark, pitchy, pitch black, caliginous, black, sunless, lightless &c (sun) (light), somber, dusky, unilluminated &c (illuminate), nocturnal, dingy, lurid, gloomy, murky, murksome, shady, umbrageous, overcast, cloudy, darkened, dark as pitch, dark as a pit, dark as Erebus, benighted, noctivagant, noctivagous, in the dark, in the shade, brief as the lightning in the collied night, eldest Night and Chaos, ancestors of Nature, the blackness of the noonday night, the prayer of Ajax was for light.

Dimness

N dimness, darkness, paleness, half light, demi-jour, partial shadow, partial eclipse, shadow of a shade, glimmer, gliming, nebulosity, cloud, eclipse, aurora, dusk, twilight, shades of evening, crepuscule, cockshut time, break of day, daybreak, dawn, moonlight, moonbeam, moonglade, moonshine, starlight, owl's light, candlelight, rushlight, firelight, farthing candle, dim, dull, lackluster, dingy, darkish, shorn of its beams, dark, faint, shadowed forth, glassy, cloudy, misty, blear, muggy, fuliginous, nebulous, nebular, obnubilated, overcast, crepuscular, muddy, lurid, leaden, dun, dirty, looming, pale, confused.

Blackness

VB be black, render black, blacken, infuscate, denigrate, blot, blotch, smutch, smirch, darken, black, sable, swarthy, somber, dark, inky, ebony, ebon, atramentous, jetty, coal-black, jet-black, fuliginous, pitchy, sooty, swart, dusky, dingy, murky, Ethiopic, low-toned, low in tone, of the deepest dye, black as jet, black as my hat, black as a shoe, black as a tinker's pot, black as November, black as thunder, black as midnight, nocturnal, nigrescent, gray, obscure.

Blindness

N blindness, cecity, excecation, amaurosis, cataract, ablepsy, ablepsia, prestriction, dim-sightedness, Braille, Braille-type, guttaserena (drop serene), noctograph, teichopsia, blind, eyeless, sightless, visionless, dark, stone-blind, sand- blind, stark-blind, undiscerning, dimsighted, blind as a bat, blind as a buzzard, blind as a beetle, blind as a mole, blind as an owl, wall-eyed, blinded, blindly, blindfold, blindfolded, darkly, O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, blindness, cecity, excecation, amaurosis, cataract, ablepsy, ablepsia, prestriction, dim-sightedness, Braille, Braille-type, guttaserena (drop serene), noctograph, teichopsia, blind, eyeless, sightless, visionless, dark, stone-blind, sand- blind, stark-blind, undiscerning, dimsighted, blind as a bat, blind as a buzzard, blind as a beetle, blind as a mole, blind as an owl, wall-eyed, blinded, blindly, blindfold, blindfolded, darkly, O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, blindness, cecity, excecation, amaurosis, cataract, ablepsy, ablepsia, prestriction, dim-sightedness, Braille, Braille-type, guttaserena (drop serene), noctograph, teichopsia, blind, eyeless, sightless, visionless, dark, stone-blind, sand- blind, stark-blind, undiscerning, dimsighted, blind as a bat, blind as a buzzard, blind as a beetle, blind as a mole, blind as an owl, wall-eyed, blinded, blindly, blindfold, blindfolded, darkly, O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon.

Invisibility

N invisibility, invisibleness, nonappearance, imperceptibility, indistinctness, mystery, delitescence, concealment, latency, invisible, imperceptible, undiscernible, indiscernible, unapparent, non-apparent, out of sight, not in sight, a perte de vue, behind the scenes, behind the curtain, viewless, sightless, inconspicuous, unconspicuous, unseen &c (see), covert, eclipsed, under an eclipse, dim, mysterious, dark, obscure, confused, indistinct, indistinguishable, shadowy, indefinite, undefined, ill- defined, ill-marked, blurred, fuzzy, out of focus, misty, delitescent, hidden, obscured, covered, veiled (concealed), full many a flower is born to blush unseen.

Unintelligibility

N unintelligibility, incomprehensibility, imperspicuity, inconceivableness, vagueness, obscurity, ambiguity, doubtful meaning, uncertainty, perplexity, spinosity, obscurum per obscurius, mystification, latency, transcendentalism, paradox, oxymoron, riddle, enigma, puzzle, diagnus vindice nodus, sealed book, steganography, freemasonry, pons asinorum, asses' bridge, high Dutch, Greek, Hebrew, jargon, unintelligible, unaccountable, undecipherable, undiscoverable, unknowable, unfathomable, incognizable, inexplicable, inscrutable, inapprehensible, incomprehensible, insolvable, insoluble, impenetrable, illegible, as Greek to one, unexplained, paradoxical, enigmatic, enigmatical, puzzling (secret), indecipherable, obscure, dark, muddy, clear as mud, seen through a mist, dim, nebulous, shrouded in mystery, opaque, dense, undiscernible, misty, hidden, latent, indefinite, garbled, perplexed, undetermined, vague, loose, ambiguous, mysterious, mystic, mystical, acroamatic, acroamatical, metempirical, transcendental, occult, recondite, abstruse, crabbed, inconceivable, inconceptible, searchless, above comprehension, beyond comprehension, past comprehension, beyond one's depth, unconceived, inexpressible, undefinable, incommunicable, unpredictable, unforeseeable, it's Greek to me.

Implication

N latency, implication, latency, inexpression, hidden meaning, occult meaning, occultness, mystery, cabala, anagoge, silence, concealment, more than meets the eye, more than meets the ear, Delphic oracle, le dessous des cartes, undercurrent, implication, logical implication, logical consequence, entailment, allusion, insinuation, innuendo, adumbration, something rotten in the state of Denmark, snake in the grass, secret, darkness, invisibility, imperceptibility, latent, lurking, secret, occult, implied, dormant, abeyant, unapparent, unknown, unseen, in the background, invisible, indiscoverable, dark, impenetrable, unspied, unsuspected, unsaid, unwritten, unpublished, unbreathed, untalked of, untold &c, unsung, unexposed, unproclaimed, undisclosed, unexpressed, not expressed, tacit, undeveloped, solved, unexplained, untraced, undiscovered, untracked, unexplored, uninvented, indirect, crooked, inferential, by inference, by implication, implicit, constructive, allusive, covert, muffled, steganographic, understood, underhand, underground, delitescent, concealed, by a side wind, sub silentio, in the background, behind the scenes, behind one's back, on the tip of one's tongue, secretly, between the lines, thereby hangs a tale, tacitum vivit sub pectore vulnus, where there's smoke, there's fire.

Concealment

N concealment, hiding, occultation, mystification, seal of secrecy, screen, disguise, masquerade, masked battery, hiding place, cryptography, steganography, freemasonry, stealth, stealthiness, sneakiness, obreption, slyness, latitancy, latitation, seclusion, privacy, secrecy, secretness, incognita, reticence, reserve, mental reserve, reservation, arriere pensee, suppression, evasion, white lie, misprision, silence, suppression of truth, underhand dealing, closeness, secretiveness, mystery, latency, snake in the grass, secret, stowaway, concealed, hidden, secret, recondite, mystic, cabalistic, occult, dark, cryptic, cryptical, private, privy, in petto, auricular, clandestine, close, inviolate, tortuous, behind a screen, undercover, under an eclipse, in ambush, in hiding, in disguise, in a cloud, in a fog, in a mist, in a haze, in a dark corner, in the shade, in the dark, clouded, wrapped in clouds, wrapt in clouds, invisible, buried, underground, perdu, secluded, undisclosed &c, untold, covert, untraceable, mysterious, irrevealable, inviolable, confidential, esoteric, not to be spoken of, unmentionable, obreptitious, furtive, stealthy, feline, skulking, surreptitious, underhand, hole and corner, sly, secretive, evasive, reserved, reticent, uncommunicative, buttoned up, close, close as wax, taciturn, secretly, in secret, in private, in one's sleeve, in holes and corners, in the dark, januis clausis, with closed doors, a huis clos, hugger mugger, a la derobee, under the cloak of, under the rose, under the table, sub rosa, en tapinois, in the background, aside, on the sly, with bated breath, sotto voce, in a whisper, without beat of drum, a la sourdine, behind the veil, beyond mortal ken, beyond the grave, beyond the veil, hid from mortal vision, into the eternal secret, into the realms supersensible, into the supreme mystery, in confidence, in strict confidence, in strictest confidence, confidentially, between ourselves, between you and me, between you and me and the bedpost, entre nous, inter nos, under the seal of secrecy, a couvert, underhand, by stealth, like a thief in the night, stealthily, behind the scenes, behind the curtain, behind one's back, behind a screen, incognito, in camera, it must go no further, it will go no further, don't tell a soul, tell it not in Gath, nobody the wiser, alitur vitium vivitque tegendo, let it be tenable in your silence still, background information, deep background information, deep background, background session, backgrounder, not for attribution.