Word of the Day Archive
Wednesday May 19, 1999
tenebrous \TEN-uh-bruhs\
, adjective:
Dark; gloomy.
He found the Earl, who is eight feet tall and has the family trait of a Cyclops eye, standing stock still, dressed from head to foot in deepest black, in one of the most tenebrous groves in all his haunted domains.
-- Peter Simple, "At Mountwarlock", Daily Telegraph, March 20, 1998
We are so used to the tenebrous atmosphere that can be created in indoor theatres that it's a shock to realise that this murkiest of tragedies first saw the literal light of day at the Globe theatre.
-- Paul Taylor, "Cool, calm, disconnected", Independent, June 7, 2001
And lurking behind our every move is the knowledge of our own mortality. It gives life its edgy disquiet, its tenebrous underside.
-- Douglas Kennedy, "Sudden death", Independent, June 3, 1999
Tenebrous derives from Latin tenebrosus, from tenebrae, "darkness."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for tenebrous
