Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases by Peter Mark Roget

(dark color) 431; obscurity, gloom, murk; dusk &c (dimness) 422. Cimmerian darkness†, 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†. obscuration; occultation, adumbration, obumbration†; obtenebration†, offuscation†, caligation†; extinction; eclipse, total eclipse; gathering of the clouds. shading; distribution of shade; chiaroscuro &c (light) 420. noctivagation†. [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†, adumbrate; cast into the shade becloud, bedim†, bedarken†; 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†, darkling; obscure, tenebrious†, sombrous†, pitch dark, pitchy, pitch black; caliginous†; black &c (in color) 431. sunless, lightless &c (sun) (light), &c 423; somber, dusky; unilluminated &c (illuminate) &c 420 [Obs.]; nocturnal; dingy, lurid, gloomy; murky, murksome†; 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 [Paradise Lost]; the blackness of the noonday night [Longfellow]; the prayer of Ajax was for light [Longfellow].