dusken

English

Etymology

dusk +‎ -en

Verb

dusken (third-person singular simple present duskens, present participle duskening, simple past and past participle duskened)

1. (transitive) To make dusky or obscure.
   • 1932, James Joyce, “From a Banned Writer to a Banned Singer”, in The Complete Works of James Joyce‎^[1], published 2016:

     It was last seen and heard of by some macgillic-cuddies above a lonely valley of their reeks, duskening the greylight as it flew, its cry echechohoing among the anfractuosities: pour la dernière fois,' The blackbulled ones, stampeding, drew in their horns, all appailed and much upset, which explaints the guttermilk on their overcoats.

   • 1906, George Banghart Henry Swayze, Yarb and Cretine‎^[2], page 123:

     Twilight began to dusken the quiet of the house.

   • 1550, Thucydides, translated by Thomas Nichols, The hystory writtone by Thucidides the Athenyan of the warre, translation of History of the Peloponnesian War (in Ancient Greek):

     The sayd epigrame was not utterly defaced, but only duskened or rased.

2. (intransitive) To grow or become dusky.
   • 1801, Henry James Pye, Alfred:

     Noble you must be: noble too am I / If true the tale that Danewulf loves to tell / When twilight duskens round the crackling logs

   • 1945, Grace Livingston Hill, All Through the Night‎^[3]:

     He vanished so quickly that she looked down the duskening street in vain to see a stalwart officer, whom she had fully intended to accompany on his way to get a little better acquainted with him.

   • 1995 [1924], Dmitri Nabokov, “La Veneziana”, in The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov, translation of original by Vladimir Nabokov:

     When in a meadow, or, as now, in a quiet, already duskening wood, he would involuntarily begin to wonder if, through this silence, he might perhaps hear the entire, enormous world traversing space with a melodious whistle, the bustle of distant cities, the pounding of sea waves, the singing of telegraph wires above the deserts.

Middle English

Alternative forms

• desken, duskyn, deskyn, doskin

Etymology

From Old English doxian; equivalent to dosk +‎ -en (infinitival suffix).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɔskən/, /ˈduskən/, /ˈdɛskən/

Verb

dusken (rare)

1. To become or make dark or dusky.

Conjugation

Conjugation of dusken (weak in -ed)

infinitive	(to) dusken, duske
	present tense	past tense
1st-person singular	duske	dusked
2nd-person singular	duskest	duskedest
3rd-person singular	dusketh	dusked
subjunctive singular	duske
imperative singular		—
plural1	dusken, duske	duskeden, duskede
imperative plural	dusketh, duske	—
participles	duskynge, duskende	dusked, ydusked

¹Sometimes used as a formal 2nd-person singular.

Descendants

• English: dusk

References

• “dusken, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-1-10.