tenebrific
English edit
Etymology edit
From New Latin tenebrificus, from Latin tenebrae (“darkness”) + -i- + -ficus (“making, causing”).[1]
Adjective edit
tenebrific (comparative more tenebrific, superlative most tenebrific)
- Producing darkness, obscuring; (loosely) gloomy.
- Tenebrific stars were once thought to be the source of darkness during the night.
- 1793, Robert Burns, “Epistle to Davie, A Brother Poet”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. […], 2nd edition, volume I, Edinburgh: […] T[homas] Cadell, […], and William Creech, […], published 1793, →OCLC, stanza X, page 222:
- It lightens, it brightens, / The tenebrific ſcene, / To meet with, and greet with / My Davie, or my Jean!
Related terms edit
References edit
- ^ John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “tenebrific, a.”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.