dark

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“
The Polynesian fear of ghosts and of the dark has been already referred to.

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Definitions (76)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (23)

  1. adjective Lacking or having very little light: a dark corner.
  2. adjective Lacking brightness: a dark day.
  3. adjective Reflecting only a small fraction of incident light.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (34)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (16)

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Examples (50)

  • Painting in the dark was a challenge in the late nineteenth century, particularly for an artist who relied merely on his powers of observation; Van Gogh refused to be bound by this alternative to work strictly from observation, or from imagination. —  GotPoetry.com News
  • That shot in the dark was a clear miss. —  Days Off And Other Digressions
  • Not a star pricked the sky; the dark was the dark of a pot in a cave and a snail boiling under the lid of it. —  Gilian The Dreamer His Fancy, His Love and Adventure
  • He went to his door and opened it and looked down the yawning stairway; only the sigh of the wind in the gun-slits occupied the stairway, and the dark was the dark of Genesis. —  Doom Castle
  • Of course a wax image in the dark is the same as a wax image in the day. —  Boycotted And Other Stories
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

black ·  bright ·  cold ·  dull

Used in the same contextWord Family

dark:   darker ·  darkest
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English derk, from Old English deorc.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. from Middle English dark, derk, deork, adjective and n., from Anglo-Saxon deorc, adjective, dark. Connections uncertain.
  2. from dark, a.
  3. from Middle English darken, derken, from Anglo-Saxon *deorcian, in comp. *ā-deorcian (Somner), make dark, from deorc, dark: see dark, a.
  4. The more orig. form of darg, ult. a confer, of day-work: see darg.
 

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/dɑrk/
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