darkling.
In the dark; in obscurity.
Meaning & usage
In the dark; in obscurity.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English derkelyng. By surface analysis, dark + -ling.
Dark; growing dark; darkening.
Obscure; taking place unseen, as if in the dark.
Where this word comes from
Coined by Irish poet Mary Tighe in 1805, likely as an extension of the adverbial sense, and popularized by John Keats.
Darkness.
Where this word comes from
From darkle + -ing, darkle itself a backformation from Tighe's adjectival sense.
A child of darkness; someone dark by nature or who has grown dark in character.
A creature that lives in the dark.
A demon.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree English dark Proto-Indo-European *-lósder. Proto-Germanic *-ilaz Proto-Indo-European *-n̥kʷo-der.? Proto-Indo-European *-nós Proto-Indo-European *-iHnos Proto-Germanic *-īnaz Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz ? Proto-Germanic *-ingaz Proto-Germanic *-ilingaz Proto-West Germanic *-ling Old English -ling Middle English -ling English -ling English darkling From dark + -ling.
present participle and gerund of darkle
Where this word comes from
From darkle + -ing, darkle itself a backformation from Tighe's adjectival sense.
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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.