(dark color) 431; obscurity, gloom, murk; dusk &c (dimness) 422.
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 [Lat.]; the jaws of darkness [Midsummer
Night's Dream]; sablevested night [Milton].
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 &c (light) 420.
noctivagation†.
[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†,
adumbrate; cast into the shade becloud, bedim†, bedarken†; 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†, darkling; obscure, tenebrious†, sombrous†, pitch
dark, pitchy, pitch black; caliginous†; black &c (in color) 431.
sunless, lightless &c (sun) (light), &c 423; somber, dusky;
unilluminated &c (illuminate) &c 420 [Obs.]; nocturnal; dingy, lurid,
gloomy; murky, murksome†; 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 [Paradise Lost];
the blackness of the noonday night [Longfellow]; the prayer of Ajax was
for light [Longfellow].