radiating, admitting, or reflecting little light: a dark color.
approaching black in hue: a dark brown.
not pale or fair; swarthy: a dark complexion.
brunette; dark-colored: dark eyebrows.
having brunette hair: She's dark but her children are blond.
(of coffee) containing only a small amount of milk or cream.
gloomy; cheerless; dismal: the dark days of World War II.
sullen; frowning: a dark expression.
evil; iniquitous; wicked: a dark plot.
destitute of knowledge or culture; unenlightened.
hard to understand; obscure.
hidden; secret.
silent; reticent.
(of a theater) offering no performances; closed: The theaters in this town are dark on Sundays.
Phonetics.
(of an l-sound) having back-vowel resonance; situated after a vowel in the same syllable.Compare clear(def 24a).
(of a speech sound) of dull quality; acoustically damped.
noun
the absence of light; darkness: I can't see well in the dark.
night; nightfall: Please come home before dark.
a dark place.
a dark color.
verb (used with object)
to make dark; darken.
verb (used without object)
Obsolete. to grow dark; darken.
Idioms
in the dark,
in ignorance; uninformed: He was in the dark about their plans for the evening.
in secrecy; concealed; obscure.
keep dark, to keep as a secret; conceal: They kept their political activities dark.
Origin of dark
before 1000; (adj.) Middle Englishderk,Old Englishdeorc; (noun and v.) Middle English, derivative of the adj.; compare Middle High Germanterken to darken, hide
Related formsnon·dark, adjectivepre·dark, adjective
1. Dark,dim,obscure,gloomy,murky refer to absence or insufficiency of light. Dark implies a more or less complete absence of light: a dark night.Dim implies faintness of light or indistinctness of form (resulting from the lack of light or from imperfect vision): a dim outline.Obscure implies dimness that may arise also from factors that interfere with light or vision: obscure because of haze.Gloomy means cloudy, ill-lighted, dusky: a gloomy hall.Murky implies a thick or misty darkness: murky water.
(of complexion, hair colour, etc) not fair or blond; swarthy; brunette
(in combination)dark-eyed
gloomy or dismal
sinister; evila dark purpose
sullen or angrya dark scowl
ignorant or unenlighteneda dark period in our history
secret or mysteriouskeep it dark
phoneticsdenoting an (l) pronounced with a velar articulation giving back vowel resonance. In English, l is usually dark when final or preconsonantalCompare light 1 (def. 30)
go darkstock exchangeinformal(of a company) to remove itself from the register of major exchanges while continuing to trade
noun
absence of light; darkness
night or nightfall
a dark place, patch, or shadow
a state of ignorance (esp in the phrase in the dark)
early 13c., from dark (adj.). Figurative in the dark "ignorant" first recorded 1670s.
dark
adj.
Old English deorc "dark, obscure, gloomy; sad, cheerless; sinister, wicked," from Proto-Germanic *derkaz (cf. Old High German tarchanjan "to hide, conceal"). "Absence of light" especially at night is the original meaning. Application to colors is 16c. Theater slang for "closed" is from 1916.
