dusk

• (adjective): From Middle English dosk, duske (“dusky”, adj.), from Old English dox (“dark, swarthy”), from Proto-Germanic *duskaz (“dark, smoky”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰuh₂s- (compare Old Irish donn (“dark”), Latin fuscus (“dark, dusky”), Sanskrit धूसर (dhūsara, “dust-colored”)), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewh₂- (“smoke, mist, haze”). More at dye. Related to dust.
• (verb): From Middle English dusken, from Old English doxian.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dʌsk/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌsk

dusk (countable and uncountable, plural dusks)

1. A period of time at the end of day when the sun is below the horizon but before the full onset of night, especially the darker part of twilight.
2. A darkish colour.
   • 1700, [John] Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     Whose dusk set off the whiteness of the skin.

3. The condition of being dusky; duskiness

• (period of time): evenfall, nightfall, smokefall, vespers; see also Thesaurus:dusk

• (period of time): dawn, daybreak; see also Thesaurus:dawn

• (period of time): twilight; see also Thesaurus:twilight

• astronomical dusk
• civil dusk
• nautical dusk

• (times of day) time of day; dawn, morning, noon/midday, afternoon, dusk, evening, night, midnight ^{(Category: en:Times of day)}

dusk (third-person singular simple present dusks, present participle dusking, simple past and past participle dusked)

1. (intransitive) To begin to lose light or whiteness; to grow dusk.
   • 1936, Alfred Edward Housman, More Poems‎, XXXIII, lines 25-27:

     I see the air benighted
     And all the dusking dales,
     And lamps in England lighted,

2. (transitive) To make dusk.
   • 1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “(please specify |book=I to XXXVII)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. […], (please specify |tome=1 or 2), London: […] Adam Islip, published 1635, →OCLC:

     After the sun is up, that shadow which dusketh the light of the Moone must needs be under the earth.

dusk (comparative dusker, superlative duskest)

1. Tending to darkness or blackness; moderately dark or black; dusky.
   • 1671, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J. M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC:

     A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades.

• dusk at OneLook Dictionary Search

• skud

dusk

1. Alternative form of dosk