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dark
[ dahrk ]
adjective
- having very little or no light:
The movie projector works much better in a dark room.
- radiating, admitting, or reflecting little light:
A worm bin can be started in a 10-gallon plastic container in a dark color.
Antonyms: bright
- approaching black in hue:
They stained the wood floor a dark brown.
- not pale or fair in skin tone:
My mother had a dark complexion, but my father's was lighter.
- brunette; brown or black:
The man is described as 55 to 65 years old, with short gray hair and dark eyebrows.
- having brown or black hair:
She's dark but her children are blond.
- (of food or drink, especially coffee beans) roasted, cooked, or toasted until near black in color: often used to describe the process itself:
That brand of coffee is good, but I can't always find the dark roast.
- (of coffee) containing only a small amount of milk or cream:
We'll have two large coffees—one black, one dark and sweet.
- evil; iniquitous; wicked:
At the film's climax, the protagonist reveals a dark plot to assassinate the king.
- gloomy; cheerless; dismal:
He served as a courier for the Polish resistance during the dark days of World War II.
Antonyms: cheerful
- dealing with subject matter that is shocking, disturbing, or grim:
This manga is a bit darker than the typical princess novel, as it has some scenes with gore.
- sullen; frowning:
With a dark expression, he demanded to know what she was doing.
Antonyms: pleasant
- hidden; secret.
- hard to understand; obscure:
Among the fragments left us by this poet, many lines are dark in meaning.
Antonyms: clear
- silent; reticent.
- destitute of knowledge or culture; unenlightened.
- (of a theater) offering no performances; closed:
The theaters in this town are dark on Sundays.
- Phonetics.
- (of an l- sound) having back-vowel resonance; situated after a vowel in the same syllable. Compare clear ( def 24a ).
- (of a speech sound) of dull quality; acoustically damped.
noun
- the absence of light; darkness:
I can't see well in the dark.
- night; nightfall:
Please come home before dark.
- a color close to black, or something having such a color:
Black and white photography has lots of darks.
For best results, wash darks separately from whites.
- Archaic. a place that lacks light:
Imagine diving into the dark of the sea and seeing a face emerge from the watery shadows.
verb (used with object)
- to make dark; darken:
The windows of the car had been darked, making it impossible to see inside.
verb (used without object)
- Obsolete. to grow dark; darken.
dark
/ dɑːk /
adjective
- having little or no light
a dark street
dark brown
- (of complexion, hair colour, etc) not fair or blond; swarthy; brunette
- ( in combination )
dark-eyed
- gloomy or dismal
- sinister; evil
a dark purpose
- sullen or angry
a dark scowl
- ignorant or unenlightened
a dark period in our history
- secret or mysterious
keep it dark
- See lightphonetics denoting an (l) pronounced with a velar articulation giving back vowel resonance. In English, l is usually dark when final or preconsonantal Compare light 1
- go dark informal.go dark stock exchange (of a company) to remove itself from the register of major exchanges while continuing to trade
noun
- absence of light; darkness
- night or nightfall
- a dark place, patch, or shadow
- a state of ignorance (esp in the phrase in the dark )
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Derived Forms
- ˈdarkly, adverb
- ˈdarkish, adjective
- ˈdarkness, noun
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Other Words From
- non·dark adjective
- pre·dark adjective
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Word History and Origins
Origin of dark1
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Word History and Origins
Origin of dark1
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Idioms and Phrases
- go dark,
- to stop communicating, transmitting, or broadcasting:
Thousands of websites went dark for a day to demonstrate that the bill would ruin the internet as we know it.
I've tried to reach out, but he's gone dark and there's no contact.
- to shut down or stop operating; close, temporarily or permanently:
The area is so depressed that more than half the restaurants in this county have gone dark in the past five years.
- in the dark,
- in ignorance; uninformed:
He was in the dark about their plans for the evening.
- in secrecy; concealed; obscure.
- keep dark, to keep as a secret; conceal:
They kept their political activities dark.
More idioms and phrases containing dark
- in the dark
- keep someone in the dark
- leap in the dark
- shot in the dark
- whistle in the dark
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Synonym Study
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Example Sentences
He wore white gloves, a dignified long black coat, and matching pants and vest, and he carried a dark walking stick.
I thought about the mother, her fear of the dark, of the harm she feared might come to her daughters.
Then she managed to struggle a mile through dark, rainy woods.
These are dark times for network TV, but experiments like Galavant are the silver lining.
Luke Skywalker is an evil robot who has fallen to the dark side of the force.
Ripperda's eye fell upon the mantle,—it was discoloured a dark red in many places, he nodded his head, and the man withdrew.
He glanced aside, and saw an exceedingly pretty, dark face, which looked vaguely familiar.
Down in his galleries and chambers where it was dark as a pocket Grandfather Mole enjoyed himself thoroughly.
His dark, shining, almost too intelligent eyes looked at Nigel, and looked away.
The seeds of some species are of a dark brown while others are of a lighter shade.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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