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BLACKNESS
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The quality or state of the achromatic color of least lightness (bearing the least resemblance to white)
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("blackness" is a kind of...):
achromatic color; achromatic colour (a color lacking hue; white or grey or black)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "blackness"):
coal black; ebony; jet black; pitch black; sable; soot black (a very dark black)
Derivation:
black (being of the achromatic color of maximum darkness; having little or no hue owing to absorption of almost all incident light)
black (soiled with dirt or soot)
black ((of coffee) without cream or sugar)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Total absence of light
Example:
in the black of night
Synonyms:
black; blackness; lightlessness; pitch blackness; total darkness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("blackness" is a kind of...):
dark; darkness (absence of light or illumination)
Derivation:
black (extremely dark)
Context examples:
The grim blackness of the stones told by what fate the Hall had fallen—by conflagration: but how kindled?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
From below, as from out an abyss of blackness, came up a gurgling sound, as of air bubbling through water.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
In the soft light the distant hills became melted, and the shadows in the valleys and gorges of velvety blackness.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
All round the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
No lights burned in the upper hall, but Brissenden threaded the utter blackness like a familiar ghost.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Then naught came up out of the blackness save a heavy panting of some creature struggling sorely for air.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Each moment I expected to see the glare of lamps through the blackness; but all was dark.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
The HISPANIOLA herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being whirled along, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw her spars toss a little against the blackness of the night; nay, as I looked longer, I made sure she also was wheeling to the southward.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Before the sun dipped below the black mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its downward way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunset-colour—flame, purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold; with here and there masses not large, but of seemingly absolute blackness, in all sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal silhouettes.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
