darken.
To make dark or darker by reducing light.
Meaning & usage
To make dark or darker by reducing light.
To become dark or darker (having less light).
To get dark (referring to the sky, either in the evening or as a result of cloud).
To make dark or darker in colour.
To become dark or darker in colour.
To render gloomy, darker in mood.
To become gloomy, darker in mood.
To blind, impair the eyesight.
To be blinded, lose one’s eyesight.
To cloud, obscure, or perplex; to render less clear or intelligible.
To make foul; to sully; to tarnish.
To be extinguished or deprived of vitality, to die.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English derkenen, dirkenen, from Old English *deorcnian, *diercnian (“to darken”), from Proto-West Germanic *dirkinōn (“to darken”), equivalent to dark + -en. Cognate with Scots derken, durken (“to darken”), Old High German tarchanjan, terchinen (“to darken”), Middle High German terken, derken (“to darken”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.