Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or like twilight; dim: "the period's crepuscular charm and a waning of the intense francophilia that used to shape the art market” ( Wall Street Journal).
- adj. Zoology Becoming active at twilight or before sunrise, as do bats and certain insects and birds.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Pertaining to or resembling twilight; glimmering.
- In zoology, flying or appearing in the twilight or evening, or before sunrise: as, the crepuscular or nocturnal Lepidoptera.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Pertaining to twilight; glimmering; hence, imperfectly clear or luminous.
- adj. Flying in the twilight or evening, or before sunrise; -- said certain birds and insects.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. like twilight; dim.
Examples
“As I made a mental note of Hitchens' casual use of the word "crepuscular," the Maryland professor grumbled in my direction.”
“Garrett, does the word crepuscular do anything for you?”
“You might call it a dreamscape, but they say no, it's "crepuscular" - it's the slippery moment just after you wake up, between sleep and wakefulness.”
“Boars are crepuscular, that is they forage from dusk until dawn and they are the only hoofed animals known to dig burrows.”
“Maybe he was trying to find that "crepuscular" place where left and right brain coexist in a harmonious union.”
“People view Mike Nelson's installation which turns the British Pavilion into a 'disorienting, dusty, crepuscular world full of labyrinthine passages'.”
“Nelson's already much talked-about installation, which opens to the public this Saturday, takes the visitor through the front door of the elegant, colonnaded 19th-century former tearoom that forms Britain's official pavilion and plunges them into a disorienting, dusty, crepuscular world full of labyrinthine passages, false walls and shoulder-hunchingly low ceilings.”
“Two members of staff were busy with customers and two more were assembling glossy black tables for huge tellys in the crepuscular rear of the shop.”
“A haze of cement dust blanketed the wreckage, softening sharp edges and muffling all sounds in its dreary crepuscular light.”
“Thus Jerome emphasises the crepuscular setting, and a certain psychic distance opens up between shroud and sudarium.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘crepuscular’.
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Visuals
A list of words which yield surprising, beautiful, amusing, or otherwise noteworthy images here on Wordnik.
photochrom, fufluns, thank you, cool l..., postcard, picture postcard, cricket, physiological ill..., Gakuryū Ishii, ametropia, One Froggy Evening, rhodopsin, Santiago Calatrava and 621 more...
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Words
phantasmagoria, eviscerate, avast, simulacrum, varicose, oblique, gestalt, ersatz, vernal, vivace, stellate, synecdoche and 314 more...
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Silly-sounding words
Serious words that sound silly when you say them
philosophunculist, argy-bargy, Labradoodle, shittah, shittim, floccinaucinihili..., succedaneum, honorificabilitud..., fag-ma-fuff, buffarilla, yazzihamper, mammothrept and 140 more...
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anosognosia antidote
I never would have guessed!
pedantic, pernicious, anosognosia, cytokine, theodicy, determinism, Higgs boson, Heuristics, jawbone, hagiography, incipient, prolix and 455 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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January 2012
pique, pedigree, tutelage, epochal, verisimilitude, bloviate, jocular, jocund, gleam, babel, apparat, bedfellow and 196 more...
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Times of Day
A cycle we should know by name
dawn, sunrise, daw, sparrow-fart, moonrise, daybreak, crepuscular, false dawn, greking, night, dusk, evenfall and 16 more...
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Sima Yi's list
A list of words I find unusual and interesting.
dysphemism, hapax legomenon, rill, repristinate, exuviate, phillipic, fillip, cyanobacteria, prokaryotic, onomasticon, bibliotics, diplomatics and 45 more...
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O So Zhinsky!
zarf, liripipe, theandric, tazza, bobeche, autotelic, gonfalon, refulgent, crepuscular, caduceus, knop, labarum and 31 more...
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My favorites
foible, sidereal, amygdala, woodnote, cogitate, silvern, ollalieberry, ramify, diaphanous, surreality, myopia, subcelestial and 61 more...
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Dan’s Reading List
Memo to myself: Read these definitions and comments.
Memo to everyone else: Thanks for adding, by the way—I do very much appreciate it. I try to move things from here to my bookmark...moist, yarb, theodolite, fufluns, plummet, crepuscular, twist, pique, umbrage, the united states..., smeath, new interface and 9 more...
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♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1513 more...
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Favorite Words
pablum, maundy, histrionic, adamant, ascribe, verbiage, insouciant, erudite, gregarious, superfluous, banal, obdurate and 280 more...
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Vocab [General]
No particular specification to this list.
philology, etymology, atavistic, proscribe, inchoate, vulgate, abstruse, agnate, anodize, anthropomorphic, assiduous, augur and 89 more...
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favorite words
petrichor, omphaloskepsis, ouroboros, oneiric, flaneur, saunter, dishabituation, fractalization, eudemony, phosphorescence, holographic, umwelt and 129 more...
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The Troublesome Offspring Of Cardinal Guzman
Words and names discovered or re-discovered while reading and re-reading this awesome book.
LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES, the Navantes, the Cusicuari, the Kogi, the Acahuatecs, Mount Aconcagua, Hoy, miedo, escandalice, puede, hablar, ingenio and 328 more...
Dan337 See also “crepuscle”, “crepuscular arch”, “crepuscular ray”, “crepuscule”, “crepusculine”, “crepusculous”, and “crepusculum”. Jan 26, 2011
magma “…Our life is but the crepuscular memory, or crepuscular reflection, doubtlessly distorted and mutilated, of an irrecoverable process.” - Jorge Luis Borges Mar 26, 2010
jmjarmstrong JM is at his crepuscular best when the edges of objects become indistinct. Mar 10, 2010
oroboros Gloaming Aug 5, 2009
sangeevj twilight May 7, 2009
elgiad007 Before learning the correct pronunciation, this word reminded me of a husky crepe. Nov 11, 2008
tinevalen crepuscular...something akin to muscular, yet a bit crusty and alien...
tinevalen Nov 11, 2008
emmy Crepuscular Dawn by Paul Virilio. Read it. Feb 23, 2008
chained_bear I like this word, but it always reminds me of cells--like "corpuscle" or "muscular"--or even "testicular."
If that ruins it for anyone, I'm sorryish. ;) Oct 23, 2007
npydyuan A fine feature of "crepuscular" is its ability to signify dusk OR dawn. The in-between times, the secret times.... Sep 16, 2007
samoritan In a strongly-worked essay on gun violence, Harlan Ellison once referred to Ronald Reagan as a "crepuscular old fart". May 17, 2007
polymorph One theory of the evolution of the human brain is that our distant crepuscular ancestors needed sharp vision to avoid predators. This lead to increased brain capacity necessary to process the higher image resolution that their enlarged optic nerve was delivering (I imagine a wide-eyed lemur-like creature constantly scanning its environment searching for danger in the twilight). Apr 8, 2007
beee I like this word. It is the inspiration for the last name of the heroine of "Dos Palabras," a short story by Isabel Allende. In Spanish it sounds quite romantic, but yes, I have to agree that the English pronunciation is less agreeable. Feb 15, 2007
valse I do agree this is a strange word...but it matches a pretty strange time of day. That beautiful, eerie glow and the darkness slowly creeping up. Of course, it can also be used to describe insects and other animals that come out around that time... Jan 4, 2007
tree odd, i just wrote this as a comment to someone on livejournal: the word crepuscular brings to mind rabbits, so for me it's a lovely, faintly sad word - sad because my bunnies have passed. it makes me think of twitching noses and shadows. Dec 27, 2006
billifer It reminds me of seafood. Crepuscular... crustacean.... Same thing. :) Dec 22, 2006
hanru Agreed. Twilight deserves a more pleasant-sounding word... Dec 9, 2006
emily_morine I'm not sure whether I love crepuscular or hate it. I love that there's a word for this concept, but the actual word itself seems more descriptive of an infected, peeling scab. Dec 8, 2006