#421. Darkness. -- N. darkness &c. adj., absence of light; blackness &c. (dark color) 431; obscurity, gloom, murk; dusk &c. (dimness) 422.
Cimmerian darkness[obs], 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[obs].
obscuration; occultation, adumbration, obumbration[obs]; obtenebration[obs], offuscation|, caligation|; extinction; eclipse, total eclipse; gathering of the clouds.
shading; distribution of shade; chiaroscuro &c. (light) 420.
noctivagation[obs].
[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[obs], adumbrate; cast into the shade becloud, bedim[obs], bedarken[obs]; 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[obs], darkling; obscure, tenebrious[obs], sombrous[obs], pitch dark, pitchy, pitch black; caliginous[obs]; black &c. (in color) 431.
sunless, lightless &c. (see sun[obs], light, &c. 423); somber, dusky; unilluminated &c. (see illuminate &c. 420)[obs]; nocturnal; dingy, lurid, gloomy; murky, murksome[obs]; 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 " [P. L.]; " the blackness of the noonday night " [Longfellow]; " the prayer of Ajax was for light " [Longfellow].