Mawson, C.O.S., ed. (1870–1938). Roget’s International Thesaurus. 1922.
NOUN:DARKNESS &c. adj.; tenebrosity, umbrageousness, dunness [rare], caliginousness, lightlessness, sootiness; blackness (dark color) [See Blackness]; obscurity, gloom, murk or mirk, murkiness or mirkiness, darksomeness; dusk (dimness) [See Dimness].Cimmerian -, Stygian -, Egyptian- darkness; night; midnight; dead of -, witching hour of -, witching time of- night; darkness visible; “darkness which may be felt” [Bible]; “the palpable obscure” [Milton]; “embalméd darkness” [Keats]; Erebus; “the jaws of darkness” [M. N. D.]; “sable-vested Night” [Milton].
SHADOW, shade, umbra, penumbra; skiagraphy or sciagraphy; skiagram or sciagram, skiagraph or sciagraph; radiograph.
OBSCURATION; obumbration [rare]; obtenebration [rare], offuscation [obs.], caligation [obs.], adumbration; extinction; eclipse, total eclipse; gathering of the clouds.
SHADING; distribution of shade; chiar-oscuro [It.] (light) [See Light].
VERB:BE DARK &c. adj.; be in darkness &c. n.
DARKEN, obscure, shade; dim; tone down, lower; overcast, overshadow; cloud, cloud over, darken over, murk or mirk; eclipse; offuscate [obs.], obumbrate, obtenebrate [rare], obfuscate; adumbrate; cast into the shade; becloud, bedim, bedarken; cast -, throw -, spread- a -shade, – shadow, – gloom; “walk in darkness and in the shadow of death” [Book of Common Prayer].
EXTINGUISH, put out, blow out, snuff out, dout [obs. or dial. Eng.]
ADJECTIVE:DARK, darksome, darkling; obscure, tenebrious, tenebrous, sombrous, pitch dark, pitchy; caliginous [archaic]; black (in color) [See Blackness].
dark as -pitch, – the pit, – Erebus.
SUNLESS, lightless &c. (see sun, light, [See Luminary]); somber, dusky; unilluminated &c. (see illuminate [See Light]); nocturnal; dingy, lurid, gloomy; murky or mirky, murksome or mirksome, sooty, shady, umbrageous; overcast (dim) [See Dimness]; cloudy (opaque) [See Opacity]; darkened &c. v.
BENIGHTED; noctivagant, noctivagous.
ADVERB:in the -dark, – shade; at night, by night, through the night; darkling, darklings [rare].
QUOTATIONS:
- In the dead vast and middle of the night.—Hamlet
- Brief as the lightning in the collied night.—Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Eldest Night and Chaos, ancestors of Nature.—Paradise Lost
- Empress of silence, and the queen of sleep.—Marlowe
- Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun.—J. Blanco White
- The blackness of the noonday night.—Longfellow
- The prayer of Ajax was for light.—Longfellow