darkle

American  

[dahr-kuhl] / ˈdɑr kəl /

verb (used without object)

darkled, darkling

1. to appear dark; show indistinctly.

2. to grow dark, gloomy, etc.

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darkle British  

/ ˈdɑːkəl /

verb

1. to grow dark; darken

2. (intr) to appear dark or indistinct

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Etymology

Origin of darkle

1790–1800; back formation from darkling, adv. taken as present participle

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

darkle darkled darkling

A single hobgoblin bassoon croaks ludicrously away, the pixies darkle and flirt and dance their hearts out of them.

From Contemporary American Composers Being a Study of the Music of This Country, Its Present Conditions and Its Future, with Critical Estimates and Biographies of the Principal Living Composers; and an Abundance of Portraits, Fac-simile Musical Autographs, and Compositions by Rupert Hughes

And the fire-flies wink and darkle, Crowded swarms that soar and sparkle, And in wildering escort gather!

From Faust by Bayard Taylor

Stars, for my mariner sparkle, As the nights darkle!

From Targum by George Henry Borrow

In the fitful light darkle and gleam the swarthy-hued faces around them.

From The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems by Hanford Lennox Gordon

Should It never Curb or cure Aught whatever Those endure Whom It quickens, let them darkle to extinction swift and sure.

From A Cluster of Grapes A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry by Various

I was so far from wishing myself to smile at it, that I darkled most respectfully about it, without the courage to inquire directly into the mystery.

From Seven English Cities by William Dean Howells

Their rods and nets hung up, awaiting the return of genial spring; and the churlish stream, abandoned to its wintry mood, darkled and roared savagely under the windows of the Brass Castle.

From The House by the Church-Yard by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Against the horizon a peasant boy leaned on his staff and darkled against the darkening sky.

From Familiar Spanish Travels by William Dean Howells

"Well, I think so," said the lady, while the girl darkled and bridled in young helplessness.

From The Coast of Bohemia by William Dean Howells

The banks were lines of dusk, except where some lone cottonwood loomed skyward like a giant ghost clothed with a mantle that glistered and darkled in the chill star-sheen.

From The River and I by John G. Neihardt

They included a number of vivid green and pinkish-orange darkling beetles from China and Laos, and four long-snouted weevils from South Africa.

From BBC ● Dec. 28, 2023

For them, our species stands before a darkling plain that is at once its birthright and its destiny: the universe itself.

From Slate ● Jan. 26, 2023

Enter a species of darkling beetle larvae known as Zophobas morio.

From Salon ● Jun. 11, 2022

The result isn’t just a literary quarterly; it’s a tour of the bright and darkling plain we call contemporary American literature.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 2, 2019

He pointed away over the land of Rohan into the darkling West under the sickle moon.

From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien