darkness

• darckness (obsolete)
• darkeness (obsolete)

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

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈdɑːknəs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈdɑɹknɪs/

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• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)knɪs, -ɑː(ɹ)knəs
• Hyphenation: dark‧ness

darkness (countable and uncountable, plural darknesses)

1. (uncountable) The state of being dark; lack of light.

   The darkness of the room made it difficult to see.

   • 1912, Willa Cather, The Bohemian Girl

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

   • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter III, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384:

     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) Gloom.
3. (countable) The product of being dark.
4. (uncountable) The state or quality of reflecting little light, of tending to a blackish or brownish color.

   The darkness of her skin betrayed her Mediterranean heritage.

5. (uncountable) Evilness, lack of understanding or compassion, reference to death or suffering.

• lightness

• semi-darkness, semidarkness

• Danskers