black as night

Idioms  

1. Also,. Totally black; also, very dark. For example, The well was black as night, or She had eyes that were black as coal. These similes have survived while others—black as ink, a raven, thunder, hell, the devil, my hat, the minister's coat, the ace of spades—are seldom if ever heard today. Of the current objects of comparison, pitch may be the oldest, so used in Homer's Iliad (c. 850 b.c.), and coal is mentioned in a Saxon manuscript from a.d. 1000. John Milton used black as night in Paradise Lost (1667).

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Example Sentences

“Summerhouse” is redolent of the Mediterranean atmosphere of a Highsmith plot: sharp, spicy and humor black as night.

From Los Angeles Times • May 27, 2025

Passenger pigeons were once so numerous in North America that European settlers described skies turned black as night by their mass migrations.

From Slate • Jan. 28, 2023

Meet the goth: activated charcoal, a processed ingredient often made from heated coconut shells that turns food black as night.

From Washington Post • Sep. 26, 2017

Because Miss Martineau saw in America the hope of the worldwide struggle for freedom, she spoke out boldly against "evils as black as night" that crowded in on her as she moved South.

From Time Magazine Archive

Inside, it was almost as black as night.

From "Hoot" by Carl Hiaasen