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dusky

/ˈdʌski/
IPA guide

Other forms: duskily; duskier; duskiest

Something that's dusky is dark or poorly lit, like the dusky walk home from your friend's house at twilight.

You can also use this adjective to describe a darker shade of a particular color, like your grandpa's favorite dusky pink roses or the dusky blue of the sky over the ocean just before a storm. Dusky and dusk, or the time just after the sun sets in the evening, come from the Middle English dosc, "obscure, tending to darkness, or shadowy."

Definitions of dusky
  1. adjective
    lighted by or as if by twilight
    “"The dusky night rides down the sky/And ushers in the morn"-Henry Fielding”
    synonyms: twilight, twilit
    dark
    devoid of or deficient in light or brightness; shadowed or black
  2. adjective
    (used of color) having a dark hue
    synonyms: dark, fuliginous
    black
    being of the achromatic color of maximum darkness; having little or no hue owing to absorption of almost all incident light
    darkish
    slightly dark
  3. adjective
    naturally having skin of a dark color
    “gold earrings gleamed against her dusky cheeks”
    synonyms: dark-skinned, swart, swarthy
    brunet, brunette
    marked by dark or relatively dark pigmentation of hair or skin or eyes
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