tenebrific
English
editEtymology
editFrom New Latin tenebrificus, from Latin tenebrae (“darkness”) + -i- + -ficus (“making, causing”).[1]
Adjective
edittenebrific (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
editReferences
edit- ^ John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “tenebrific, a.”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *temH-
- English terms borrowed from New Latin
- English terms derived from New Latin
- English terms derived from Latin
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
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