- with no or very little light, especially because it is night
- a dark room/street/forest/night
- What time does it get dark in summer?
- Then the theatre went dark.
- It was dark outside and I couldn't see much.
- The sky was still dark.
- Use lights to illuminate dark corners.
Extra ExamplesTopics Weathera1- It gets dark at about six o'clock.
- As it grew dark, they gathered round the fire.
- It's only three o'clock and it's nearly dark already.
- They stepped into the dark room and shone the torch.
- He stumbled along through the dark forest.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryverbs- be
- look
- seem
- …
- extremely
- fairly
- very
- …
Definitions on the go
Look up any word in the dictionary offline, anytime, anywhere with the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app.
- not light; closer in shade to black than to white
- dark blue/green/red/brown
- Darker colours are more practical and don't show stains.
- having a colour that is close to black
- He wore a dark suit and a plain tie.
- dark-coloured wood
- The dark clouds in the sky meant that a storm was coming.
- brown or black in colour
- Sue has long dark hair.
- He was handsome with dark eyes.
- Even if you have dark skin, you still need protection from the sun.
- (of a person) having dark hair, eyes, etc.
- a dark handsome stranger
opposite fair - mysterious; hidden and not known about
- There are no dark secrets in our family.
- evil or frightening
- There was a darker side to his nature.
- the dark forces of the imagination
- My mind was full of dark thoughts.
- unpleasant and without any hope that something good will happen
- the darkest days of Fascism
- The film is a dark vision of the future.
- The theatre stayed open even in the darkest days of the war.
- (of a speech sound) produced with the back part of the tongue close to the back of the mouth. In many accents of (= ways of pronouncing) English, dark /l/ is used after a vowel, as in ball. opposite clear
with little light
colours
hair/skin/eyes
mysterious
evil
without hope
phonetics
Word OriginOld English deorc, of Germanic origin, probably distantly related to German tarnen ‘conceal’.
Idioms
See dark in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee dark in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englisha dark horse
- (British English) a person who does not tell other people much about their life, and who surprises other people by having interesting qualities
- a person taking part in a race, etc. who surprises everyone by winning
keep something dark
- (British English, informal) to keep something secret and not tell people about it
- He’s got two children? Well he’s kept that dark, hasn’t he!
Check pronunciation:
dark