different between darkness vs dusk

English

Alternative forms

• darckness (obsolete)
• darkeness (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English derknesse, from Old English deorcnes; equivalent to dark +? -ness.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?d??kn?s/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?d??kn?s/
• Rhymes: -??(?)kn?s, -??(?)kn?s
• Hyphenation: dark?ness

Noun

darkness (countable and uncountable, plural darknesses)

1. (uncountable) The state of being dark; lack of light; the absolute or comparative absence of light.
   • 1912, Willa Cather, The Bohemian Girl

     Over everything was darkness and thick silence, and the smell of dust and sunflowers.

   • Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.

2. (uncountable) The state or quality of reflecting little light, of tending to a blackish or brownish color.

3. (uncountable) Gloom; gloominess; depression.
4. (countable) The product of being dark.
5. (uncountable) Lack of understanding or compassion; spiritual or mental blindness.
6. (uncountable) Secrecy; concealment.
7. (uncountable) Lack of knowledge; obscurity or meaning or intelligibility; the unknown.
8. (uncountable) Hell.

Antonyms

• lightness
• light

Derived terms

• pitch darkness
• semi-darkness, semidarkness

Translations

Anagrams

• Danskers

English

Etymology

From Middle English dosk, duske (“dusky”, adj.), from Old English dox (“dark, swarthy”), from Proto-Germanic *duskaz (“dark, smoky”), from Proto-Indo-European *d?uh?s- (compare Old Irish donn (“dark”), Latin fuscus (“dark, dusky”), Sanskrit ???? (dh?sara, “dust-colored”)), from Proto-Indo-European *d?ewh?- (“smoke, mist, haze”). More at dye. Related to dust.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d?sk/
• Rhymes: -?sk

Noun

dusk (countable and uncountable, plural dusks)

1. A period of time at the end of day when the sun is below the horizon but before the full onset of night, especially the darker part of twilight.
2. A darkish colour.

   • Whose dusk set off the whiteness of the skin.

3. The condition of being dusky; duskiness

Synonyms

• (period of time): evenfall, nightfall, smokefall, vespers; see also Thesaurus:dusk

Antonyms

• (period of time): dawn, daybreak; see also Thesaurus:dawn

Hypernyms

• (period of time): twilight; see also Thesaurus:twilight

Hyponyms

• astronomical dusk
• civil dusk
• nautical dusk

Translations

See also

• (times of day) time of day; dawn, morning, noon/midday, afternoon, dusk, evening, night, midnight ^{(Category: en:Times of day)}

Verb

dusk (third-person singular simple present dusks, present participle dusking, simple past and past participle dusked)

1. (intransitive) To begin to lose light or whiteness; to grow dusk.
   • 1936, Alfred Edward Housman, More Poems, XXXIII, lines 25-27

     I see the air benighted
     And all the dusking dales,
     And lamps in England lighted,

2. (transitive) To make dusk.

   • After the sun is up, that shadow which dusketh the light of the Moone must needs be under the earth.

Translations

Adjective

dusk (comparative dusker, superlative duskest)

1. Tending to darkness or blackness; moderately dark or black; dusky.

See also

• dusk at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• skud

Middle English

Adjective

dusk

1. Alternative form of dosk