1
as in to frown
to take on a gloomy or forbidding look
his face slowly darkened as we told him the sad news
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
3
as in to obscure
to make dark, dim, or indistinct
years of accumulated grime have darkened the painting until it can barely be seen
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4
as in to mar
to affect slightly with something morally bad or undesirable
the scandal darkened his otherwise sterling reputation
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of darken
That night, Californians should look west during twilight hours to see the planet shine in the darkening sky.
—
Hannah Poukish, Sacramento Bee, 31 Jan. 2025
Imagine a city without endless scaffolding darkening what feels like every building and every block.
—Bradley Tusk, New York Daily News, 26 Jan. 2025
This is a darkening time for Lammy’s brand of politics—centrist, flexible, globalist—which is in retreat almost everywhere.
—Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 20 Jan. 2025
Some smart glasses are as simple as electrochromic (automatically darkening) sunglasses.
—Simon Hill, WIRED, 29 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for darken
Recent Examples of Synonyms for darken
Verb
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Quite a few dead U.S. presidents are perhaps frowning in the hereafter after Donald Trump continues to push for the annexation of Canada.—
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Leeper was part of the DJ crowd that attracted Black and white teens because the station played R&B and rock n’ roll, which many grown-ups frowned upon at the time.—
Verb
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The resin material looks like solid wood but won’t fade in the sun or require repainting.—
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The young designer with Nigerian-Indian origins has incorporated files and documents into T-shirts, and has used a fading method on some of the pieces and inserted pieces of gold embroidery onto the shirts and dresses.—
Verb
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There is also no record of its business name on a database of online companies and its website is registered to a private domain in Holland, obscuring its true origin.—
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The average obscures significant variation, though.—
Verb
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Audio issues occasionally marred the broadcast, including brief interruptions of Fonda’s speech.—
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But a New York Times analysis of the $55 billion in savings claimed by DOGE found that the math is marred with accounting errors, incorrect assumptions, outdated data and other mistakes.—
Verb
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In the sweet snap, Tove can be seen nestled between Collins and McDowell, staring up at her dad.—
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With the Senators not back in action until Wednesday, fans will stare feverishly at the wild-card standings.—
Verb
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By the end of January, the Palisades and Eaton fires had collectively burned more than 37,000 acres of land, blackened more than 1,500 structures, and claimed 29 lives, according to the New York Times.—
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Historians will see the fires that blackened much of Los Angeles this year as one of the state’s most significant events and how recovery is managed, or mismanaged, will be legend.—
Verb
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Tech oligarchs, the gerontocracy, podcasters spouting misinformation and the erosion of civil liberties all blur into a muddy soup that’s adjacent to relevancy without ever achieving it.—
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Drawn out over an almost one month period after the initial attack, the lines between fact and fiction blur pretty fast in Zero Day, just like in our echo chamber America.—
Verb
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Dodge won't spoil the surprise by confirming if the last one will be based on the Charger or the Challenger (or maybe both), but the evidence suggests the latter is more likely.—
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Farmers’ broiler chickens suffocate, and dairy products spoil.—
Cite this Entry
“Darken.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/darken. Accessed 27 Feb. 2025.
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