darken

UK/ˈdɑːkən/US/ˈdɑɹkən/

verbB1+3 meanings Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,272 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: darkened, darkening, darkens

To darken something is to make it darker: less light, deeper colour. You darken a room by closing the curtains, darken a photo with a slider, darken your tea by leaving the bag in.

Darken works both ways. You darken a wall with a second coat of paint, and the sky darkens on its own before a storm, with no object needed. It carries mood as well as light: a face darkens, a story darkens in the second half, a scandal darkens a whole career. The one fixed phrase is old and furious, and you will meet it in novels rather than in speech: never darken my door again. The opposite is lighten, in every one of these senses.

Definitions of darken

1verbdarkenTo make something darker in colour or less bright.B1+~44%
“A second coat of stain darkened the table to a deep walnut.”
synonyms: dim, shadow
2verbbecomeTo become dark or darker.B1~54%
“The sky darkened and the first drops hit the windscreen.”
3verbcloudTo make something gloomy, or to spoil the feeling of it.B2~2%
“The news darkened his mood for the rest of the week.”
synonyms: cloud, sour

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 9 sentences found in the wild and placed 9 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Phrases it lives in

never darken my door again — never come to my house again, said in anger

Where it comes from

Darken is dark with -en stuck on the end, but the pair is ancient: Old English had deorcnian, from Proto-West Germanic dirkinon, and both already meant to darken. The same -en still builds verbs today in soften, harden and sharpen, so darken is a thousand-year-old example of a machine English never switched off.

Proto-West Germanic
*dirkinōn — to darken
Old English
*deorcnian
Middle English
derkenen
English, today
darken

Built from

*diercnian · Old English — to darken

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”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Light & Shadow, Shapes & Lines

First appears in chapter 30 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

darken in the wild

Without fixing, the remaining silver halide would darken and cause fogging of the image.
Photographic fixer
As the tabua aged, contact with the oils in human hands would cause it to darken.
Tabua
The term comes from the German Abraum-salze, "salts to be removed." Abraum, which is red, is used to darken mahogany.
Abraum salts
Feeds likely to darken the coat include molasses, linseed, copra, sunflower seeds, and alfalfa.
Sooty horse
Foods high in protein, fat, vitamin A, and trace minerals such as copper, iron, and selenium are also believed to darken the coat.
Sooty horse

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

Definitions of darken

1verbdarkenTo make something darker in colour or less bright.B1+~44%

“A second coat of stain darkened the table to a deep walnut.”

synonyms: dim, shadow

2verbbecomeTo become dark or darker.B1~54%

“The sky darkened and the first drops hit the windscreen.”

3verbcloudTo make something gloomy, or to spoil the feeling of it.B2~2%

“The news darkened his mood for the rest of the week.”

synonyms: cloud, sour

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 9 sentences found in the wild and placed 9 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.