darkness

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Absence of light

Nouns

1. darkness, dark; blackness, obscurity, gloom, murk; dusk (see dimness); cloudiness; shade, shadow, umbra, penumbra; skiagraphy; shading; swarthiness.

2. (total darkness) Cimmerian darkness, Stygian darkness, pitch-blackness, night, midnight, dead of night, witching hour, dark of the moon, watches of the night; late black.

3. (gradual darkening) obscuration, adumbration, obfuscation; extinction, extinguishment, [solar, lunar, total, or partial] eclipse; blackout, brownout, dimout; darkroom, camera obscura.

Verbs — darken, bedarken, obscure, shade; black out; dim; overcast, overshadow (see cloudiness); eclipse; obfuscate, adumbrate, cast into the shade or shadow; cast, throw, or spread a shadow; put, blow, or snuff out, extinguish, douse; turn out or off, switch off, extinguish.

Adjectives — dark, darksome, darkling, darkened; obscure, tenebrous, somber, pitch dark, pitchy, Cimmerian, Stygian; black (see color); sunless, moonless, lightless; dusky; unilluminated; nocturnal; lurid, gloomy, murky, shady, umbrageous; dark as pitch or as a pit.

Adverbs — darkly, in the dark, in the shade, in the dead of night.

Quotations — Night hath a thousand eyes (John Lyly).

Antonyms, see light.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [Absence of light]

Syn. dark, gloom, murk, dusk, murkiness, duskiness, dimness, blackness, shadiness, shade, tenebrosity, shadowiness, smokiness, lightlessness, pitch darkness, night, twilight, crepuscule, eclipse, nightfall, obscurity, cloudiness, opacity, somberness, inkiness, swarthiness, melanism, Stygian darkness, Cimmerian shade, Egyptian blackness, shades of evening, shades of night, palpable darkness; see also night 1 .

2. [Ignorance]

Syn. backwardness, benightedness, unenlightenment; see ignorance 2 .

3. [Evil]

Syn. wickedness, iniquity, sin, corruption; see evil 1 .

4. [Secrecy]

Syn. concealment, obscurity, inscrutability, seclusion; see mystery 1 , secrecy .

5. [Gloominess]

Syn. somberness, bleakness, grimness, pessimism; see gloom 2 .

III

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun Absence or deficiency of light: dark, dimness, duskiness, murkiness, obscureness, obscurity. See LIGHT.