#421.  Darkness. —­ N. darkness &c. adj., absence of light; blackness
&c. (dark color) 431; obscurity, gloom, murk; dusk &c. (dimness) 422. 
     Cimmerian darkness[obs3], 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[obs3].
     obscuration; occultation, adumbration, obumbration[obs3];
obtenebration[obs3], offuscation|, caligation|; extinction; eclipse, total eclipse; gathering of the clouds.
     shading; distribution of shade; chiaroscuro &c. (light) 420.
     noctivagation[obs3].
     [perfectly black objects] black body; hohlraum[Phys]; black hole; dark
star; dark matter, cold dark matter. 
     V. be dark &c. adj.
     darken, obscure, shade; dim; tone down, lower; overcast, overshadow;
eclipse; obfuscate, offuscate|; obumbrate[obs3], adumbrate; cast into the shade becloud, bedim[obs3], bedarken[obs3]; 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. 
     Adj. dark, darksome[obs3], darkling; obscure, tenebrious[obs3],
sombrous[obs3], pitch dark, pitchy, pitch black; caliginous[obs3]; black &c. (in color) 431.
     sunless, lightless &c. (see sun[obs3], light, &c. 423); somber, dusky;
unilluminated &c. (see illuminate &c. 420)[obs3]; nocturnal; dingy, lurid, gloomy; murky, murksome[obs3]; shady, umbrageous; overcast &c. (dim) 422; cloudy &c. (opaque) 426; darkened; &c. v.
     dark as pitch, dark as a pit, dark as Erebus[Lat].
     benighted; noctivagant!|, noctivagous!|. 
     Adv. in the dark, in the shade. 
     Phr. “brief as the lightning in the collied night” [M.  N. D.];
“eldest Night and Chaos, ancestors of Nature” [P.  L.]; “the blackness of the noonday night” [Longfellow]; “the prayer of Ajax was for light” [Longfellow].

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     #422.  Dimness. —­ N. dimness &c. adj.; darkness &c. 421; paleness &c.
(light color) 429.
     half light, demi-jour; partial shadow, partial eclipse; shadow of a
shade; glimmer, gliming[obs3]; nebulosity; cloud &c. 353; eclipse.
     aurora, dusk, twilight, shades of evening, crepuscule, cockshut time|;
break of day, daybreak, dawn.
     moonlight, moonbeam, moonglade[obs3], moonshine; starlight, owl’s
light, candlelight, rushlight, firelight; farthing candle. 
     V. be dim, grow dim &c. adj.; flicker, twinkle, glimmer; loom, lower;
fade; pale, pale its ineffectual fire [Hamlet].