dimness

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“
He bent forward his head and wiped the glass with his night-cap, but without much advantage, for the dimness was caused by the muddiness of the water Just then he began to experience uncomfortable sensations; he felt a tendency to gasp for air, and became very hot, while his garments clasped his limbs very tightly.

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Definitions (6)

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  1. The state of being dim or obscure; want of clearness, brightness, or distinctness; dullness; vagueness: applied either to the object or to the medium of vision or perception: as, the dimness of a view, of color, or of gold; the dimness of twilight or of the sky; dimness of vision, of understanding, memory, etc. Answerable to this dimness of their perception was the whole system and body of their religion. Decay of Christian Piety. With such thick dimness of excited dust In their impetuous march they fill'd the air. Cowper, Iliad, iii. Until his failing sight Faints into dimness with its own delight. Byron, Bride of Abydos, i. 6.
  2. Synonyms Obscurity, Gloom, etc. See darkness.

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Examples (50)

  • In the dimness, his face appeared craggier, more rugged than in light. —  One-ClickBuy:SeptemberHarlequinBlaze
  • Her eyes got used to the dimness, and a twittering of disturbed bats made her look up. —  A Presumption of Death - Jill Paton Walsh, Dorothy L Sayers, - [Wimsey-Vane]
  • In the dimness, the smell struck him before the sight: the reek of wet goat and the stench of rent bowels. —  Witch Star.htm
  • This groping in the dimness was terrifying, and I expected at any second to be pounced on by the Thing that had brought me there. —  The Historian
  • Instead of dimness, there was light; instead of cloying humidity, the warmth of a friendly kitchen; instead of screams and despondent sighs, the cheer of sputtering pots and hissing kettles. —  FSF,June2005
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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

half-light ·  gloom ·  stillness ·  twilight ·  blackness ·  murk ·  haze ·  grayness ·  obscurity ·  confine ·  drizzle ·  labyrinth
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 (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English dimnes, from Anglo-Saxon dimnes, from dim, dim: see dim, adjective, and -ness.
 

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