go dark

phraseC1informal · an editor’s judgementNot compared — the two pools are counted one word at a time, so a phrase has no score

To go dark is to stop all communication deliberately. No calls, no messages, and nothing to trace.

It comes from intelligence and military use, where an operative goes dark before an operation. Journalism and security borrowed it, and a network that goes dark has stopped transmitting. Business now uses it for a company that stops publishing information. There is a plainer sense too, since a building or a street that goes dark has simply lost its lights.

Definitions of go dark

1phrasego darkTo cease all communication deliberately.C1
“The account will go dark for a fortnight before the launch.”

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Spying & Secrecy

First appears in chapter 38 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

← Vocabulary

go dark

phraseC1informal · an editor’s judgementNot compared — the two pools are counted one word at a time, so a phrase has no score

To go dark is to stop all communication deliberately. No calls, no messages, and nothing to trace.

Definitions of go dark

1phrasego darkTo cease all communication deliberately.C1
“The account will go dark for a fortnight before the launch.”

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Spying & Secrecy

First appears in chapter 38 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word