darkening

darkening

1. present participle and gerund of darken

darkening (countable and uncountable, plural darkenings)

1. The act of something becoming darker.
   • 1951 October, R. S. McNaught, “Lines of Approach”, in Railway Magazine, page 704:

     At last the first glimpse from a bridge of an open-top red bus, and a noticeable darkening of the atmosphere from the smoke of London: then the increasingly dingy stations with double-barrel names, set amid what has always been to me the outstanding feature of the "Premier Line" approach to London—the positively marvellous display of crazy chimney-pots on the grey inner suburban houses. As many as twenty, all of varying style, standing together like ranks of jagged teeth, and providing a Dickensian back-cloth which no other route can boast.

   • 1978, Gerald Leonard Howett, Kenneth Low Kelly, E. Thomas Pierce, Emergency vehicle warning lights: state of the art:

     NEGATIVE FLASHES — Brief darkenings of a light that is otherwise steadily on.

• de-ranking, deranking, endarking