Roget's Thesaurus

#421. Darkness

Nouns

darkness etc. adj., absence of light; blackness etc. (dark color) 431; obscurity, gloom, murk; dusk etc. (dimness) 422. Cimmerian darkness, 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. obscuration; occultation, adumbration, obumbration; obtenebration, offuscation, caligation; extinction; eclipse, total eclipse; gathering of the clouds. shading; distribution of shade; chiaroscuro etc. (light) 420. noctivagation. [perfectly black objects] black body; hohlraum [Phys.]; black hole; dark star; dark matter, cold dark matter.

Verbs

be dark etc. adj.. darken, obscure, shade; dim; tone down, lower; overcast, overshadow; eclipse; obfuscate, offuscate; obumbrate, adumbrate; cast into the shade becloud, bedim, bedarken; 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.

Adjectives

dark, darksome, darkling; obscure, tenebrious, sombrous, pitch dark, pitchy, pitch black; caliginous; black etc. (in color) 431. sunless, lightless etc. (sun) (light), etc. 423; somber, dusky; unilluminated etc. (illuminate) etc. 420; nocturnal; dingy, lurid, gloomy; murky, murksome; shady, umbrageous; overcast etc. (dim) 422; cloudy etc. (opaque) 426; darkened; etc. v.. dark as pitch, dark as a pit, dark as Erebus [Lat.]. benighted; noctivagant, noctivagous.

Adverbs

in the dark, in the shade.

Phrases

brief as the lightning in the collied night [M. N. D.]; eldest Night and Chaos, ancestors of Nature [Paradise Lost]; the blackness of the noonday night [Longfellow]; the prayer of Ajax was for light [Longfellow].