darken

«darken» in Mova's school dictionary: To become darker or to make something darker — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (darken, darkens, darkened, darkening)

meaning for a pupil

1) To become darker or to make something darker. tree →

2) To become sad, angry or less hopeful, as a face or mood can. tree →

3) (idiom) Never darken my door again means never come to my house again. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science lessons on light, a room darkens when you close the curtains. In stories, the sky darkens before a storm and a character's face darkens with anger. In art, you darken a colour by adding black. Phrases: the sky darkened, darken someone's door.

examples

• The sky darkened before the storm. tree →
• Close the blinds to darken the room for the film. tree →
• Add a little black to darken the paint. tree →
• His face darkened when he heard the bad news. tree →
• The leaves darken in late summer. tree →
• As the sun went down, the forest darkened. tree →
• At last the day began to darken, and the evening came; still he had caught not a single fish. tree →

note

Regular verb: darkened. The -en ending means to make or become (like brighten, soften, harden). Opposite: brighten, lighten.

In the corpora

• Small shakes are normal; artists draw lightly with many strokes from the shoulder and elbow, then darken the line they like.
• Many moths rest still on trees looking like bark, and when factory soot darkened trees, dark moths survived better than pale ones.
• The Rat marches into the darkening wood.
• Silver darkens, copper goes dull brown and then green, and bronze statues in the park grow green streaks.
• Weather often warns you before it turns dangerous: tall dark clouds, a darkening sky, a sudden cool wind and distant rumbles.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «darken» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.