darkness

1 a time or place of little or no light the raiding party snuck up under cover of darkness Synonyms black, blackness, candlelight, dark, dusk, gloaming, gloom, murk, night, semidarkness, shade, shadows, twilight, umbraRelated Words midnight; blackout, brownout, dimout; shadiness, umbrage; dullness (also dulness), somberness; cloudiness, fogginess, haziness, mistiness, murkiness; dimness, faintness, gloominess, grayness, paleness; half-lightNear Antonyms moonlight, starlight, sunlight; effulgence, radiance, radiancy, shine, sunshine; incandescence, luminance, luminescence, luminosity, luminousnessAntonyms blaze, brightness, brilliance, day, daylight, glare, glow, light, lightness

2 the quality or state of having a veiled or uncertain meaning the darkness of certain passages in the Book of Revelation Synonyms ambiguity, ambiguousness, obscurity, equivocalness, equivocation, inscrutability, inscrutableness, murkiness, mysteriousness, nebulosity, nebulousness, obliqueness, obliquity, opacity, opaquenessRelated Words mystery, reconditeness; cloudiness, dimness, faintness, fogginess, fuzziness, haziness, indefiniteness, indistinctness, mistiness, shade, shadow, uncertainty, vagueness; impenetrability, incomprehensibility, incomprehensibleness; circuitousness, circuity, indirectness; deepness, depth, profoundness; abstruseness, abstrusity, complexity, complication, difficulty, obtusenessNear Antonyms comprehensibility, intelligibility, legibility; brightness, distinctness, self-evidence; certainty, surety; definiteness, exactness, explicitness, incision, incisiveness, lucidity, lucidness, perspicuity, perspicuousness; directness, forthrightness, openness, straightforwardness; palpability, tangibility, tangibleness, visibility; readability, readableness; obviousnessAntonyms clarity, clearness, obviousness, plainness

3 the time from sunset to sunrise when there is no visible sunlight let's wait for darkness before telling ghost stories Synonyms dark, night, nighttimeRelated Words dusk, evening, gloaming, nightfall, twilight; midnightNear Antonyms dawn, daybreak, sunrise, sunup; forenoon, morning; high noon, midday, noon, noonday, noontide, noontime; afternoonAntonyms day, daytime

4 an overspreading element that produces an atmosphere of gloom the darkness of that period of my life is best forgotten Synonyms cloud, pall, shadowRelated Words fog, haze, mist, murk, penumbra, umbra; midnight, night; mantle, shroud, veil