- dark
- dark adj1 Dark, dim, dusky, obscure, murky, gloomy mean partly or wholly destitute of light.Dark, the ordinary word and the most general of these terms, implies a lack of the illumination necessary to enable one to see or to identify what is before him. It may imply lack of natural illumination (as by the sun or moon){
a dark forest
}{a dark night
}or of artificial illumination (as by gas or electricity){a dark room
}or a lack of immaterial light (as cheerfulness){a dark mood
}{a dark countenance
}or of moral or spiritual light{a dark deed
}or of brilliance—that is, the quality of lightness in color{a dark blue
}Dim suggests just so much darkness that the things before one cannot be seen clearly or in their distinct or characteristic outlines: it may be applied equally to things viewed or to a source of illumination{the light has grown dim
}{dim stars
}{he could just make out dim figures in the distance
}It may designate a usually bright thing that is dulled or softened{a . . . dim and tender red— Hudson
}{a dim image of their glorious vitality— Krutch
}or a place or time that is nearly dark{scrambled over to join the other ghosts out on the dim common— Galsworthy
}{the hazy light . . . reminded him of the dim distances of his own . . . country— Anderson
}Dim as applied to eyes, sight, or insight suggests a loss of functional keenness{eyes dim with tears
}{dim eyesight
}Dusky suggests the halfway state between light and dark characteristic of twilight: like dim it implies faintness of light but unlike that word definitely connotes grayness and an approach to darkness{dusky winter evenings
}{the dusky windowless loft
}{dusky clouds
}{but comes at last the dull and dusky eve—Cowper
}Obscure is more often used in its extended senses (see OBSCURE) than in its literal sense, but it is employed literally when there is a suggestion of darkening by covering, concealment, or overshadowing that deprives a thing of its lightness, brightness, or luster{obscurest night involved the sky— Cowper
}{obscure stars
}{an obscure corner of the attic
}Murky originally implied and still sometimes implies intense darkness or a darkness in which things are not even faintly visible{Hell is murky\—Shak.
}In current use, the term more often suggests a thick, heavy darkness suggestive of smoke-laden fogs or of air filled with mist and dust{an atmosphere murky with sand— Cat her
}{as if its [London's] low sky were the roof of a cave, and its murky day a light such as one reads of in countries beneath the earth— L. P. Smith
}Gloomy (see also SULLEN) implies imperfect illumination owing to causes that interfere seriously with the radiation of light (as dense clouds or the heavy shade of many closely set trees): in addition, it often connotes pervading cheerlessness{the day was especially gloomy for June
}{the gloomiest part of the forest
}{the room was gloomy and depressing with only a dim light from a small candle
}{their gloomy pathway tended upward, so that, through a crevice, a little daylight glimmered down upon them— Hawthorne
}Antonyms: lightContrasted words: *bright, brilliant, radiant, luminous: illumined, illuminated, enlightened, lighted (see ILLUMI-NATE)2 *obscure, vague, enigmatic, cryptic, ambiguous, equivocalAnalogous words: abstruse, occult, *recondite, esoteric: *mystical, mystic, anagogic, cabalistic: intricate, complicated, knotty, *complexAntonyms: lucid
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
