dark | Lernwerd

Forms

1.Having an absolute or (more often) relative lack of light.
- The room was too dark for reading.
- Dark signals should be treated as all-way stop signs.
- He was, I think, at this time quite dark, and so had been for some years.
2.Transmitting, reflecting, or receiving inadequate light to render timely discernment or comprehension
- I reached the village before dark.
- Tom was sitting in the dark, smoking a cigarette.
- A dog can see in the dark.
3.Dull or deeper in hue; not bright or light.
- Her skin grew dark with a suntan.
- My sister’s hair is darker than mine.
- If I close my eyes I can see Marie today as I saw her then. Round, rosy face, snub nose, dark hair piled up in a chignon.
4.Ambiguously or unclearly expressed.
- What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?
- What may seem dark at the first, will afterward be found more plain.

1.A complete or (more often) partial absence of light.
- Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out.
2.Ignorance.
- Look, what you do, you do it still i' th' dark.
- The lawyer was left in the dark as to why the jury was dismissed.
- Till we perceive it by our own understandings, we are as much in the dark, and as void of knowledge, as before.
3.Nightfall.
- It was after dark before we got to playing baseball.
4.A dark shade or dark passage in a painting, engraving, etc.
- The lights may serve for a repose to the darks, and the darks to the lights.

Common· #933

From Middle English derk

From Old English deorc

From Proto-West Germanic *derk (“dark”), of uncertain origin, but possibly from Proto-Indo-European *dʰerg- (“dim, dull”)

From Proto-Indo-European *dʰer- (“dull, dirty”).