darken

verb

1. (transitive)To make dark or darker by reducing light.

   “[…] they [locusts] covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened […]”

   “So spake the Sovran voice, and Clouds began To darken all the Hill […]”

   “Almos is a hydrogen-helium gas giant with traces of sodium darkening its atmosphere.”

2. (intransitive)To become dark or darker (having less light).

   “[…] the owl and the bat flew round the darkening trees:”

   “[…] leaning at her window she watched the end of that eventful day darken over the ranges.”

3. (impersonal)To get dark (referring to the sky, either in the evening or as a result of cloud).

   “Well, I must go in now; and you too: it darkens.”

   “Then they passed out from the Forum, forced their way through the crowded streets, and soon were through the Porta Ratumena, outside the walls, and struck out across the Campus Martius, upon the Via Flaminia. It was rapidly darkening.”

   “From babyhood until fourteen, to play in a garden in the evening when it is darkening is a legend.”

   “It had been fine all morning, but it was darkening now, the weather was going to get worse.”

   “He looked up. It was darkening here as well. Sky getting red, the edge of the quarry dark and jagged against it.”

4. (transitive)To make dark or darker in colour.

   “She puts on lipstick and darkens her eyebrows, which are now very scanty […]”

5. (intransitive)To become dark or darker in colour.

   “The lovely hair had lost its rose-gold glimmer, and had darkened to rose-brown […]”

6. (transitive)To render gloomy, darker in mood.

   “With these forced thoughts, I prithee, darken not The mirth o’ the feast.”

   “It was a pleasure seeing you again. I’m only sorry I had to darken the pleasure with my private problems.”

7. (intransitive)To become gloomy, darker in mood.

   “1797, Ann Radcliffe, The Italian, London: T. Cadell Jun[ior] and W. Davies, Volume 2, Chapter 9, p. 303, His countenance darkened while he spoke […]”

   “Alice’s big eyes darkened with trouble.”

8. (transitive)To blind, impair the eyesight.

   “Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see […]”

   “1773, Samuel Johnson, letter to James Boswell dated 5 July, 1773, in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume I, London: Charles Dilly, p. 424, When your letter came to me, I was so darkened by an inflammation in my eye, that I could not for some time read it.”

   “Such clouds of nameless trouble cross ⁠All night below the darken’d eyes; ⁠With morning wakes the will, and cries, ‘Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.’”

9. (intransitive)To be blinded, lose one’s eyesight.
10. (transitive)To cloud, obscure, or perplex; to render less clear or intelligible.

    “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?”

    “[…] such was his wisdome, as his Confidence did seldome darken his Fore-sight […]”

    “His [Edmund Spenser’s] stile was in his own time allowed to be vicious, so darkened with old words and peculiarities of phrase, and so remote from common use, that Johnson boldly pronounces him to have written no language.”

    ““Darken not counsel,” said Corund, “to me and my sons. Have I not these four years past been as a brother unto thee, and wilt thou still be secret toward us?””

11. (transitive)To make foul; to sully; to tarnish.

    “I must not think there are Evils enow to darken all his goodness:”

12. (intransitive)To be extinguished or deprived of vitality, to die.

    “The Danube to the Severn gave ⁠The darken’d heart that beat no more; ⁠They laid him by the pleasant shore, And in the hearing of the wave.”