verb · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
General-American:/ɪnˈdaɹkɪn/
Received-Pronunciation:/ɪnˈdɑːkən/
Received-Pronunciation:/ɛnˈdɑːkən/
1
verb
Meaning 1
To render dark or darker.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: literary, rare, transitive
Examples
[...] moral education cannot be [...] purely enlightened and enlightening [...] it cannot be simply a matter of teaching [people] to calculate the long term profit and the loss, while leaving [...] desires to develop independently. It must involve an endarkened and endarkening component, by which [people] are taught precisely to cease [their] calculations, to regard certain paths as forbidden, as places where neither profit nor loss has authority.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
2
verb
Meaning 2
To becloud, obscure, to obfuscate; to confound.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: literary, transitive
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Etymology
From en- + darken (see en- (“intensifying prefix”)), modelled on enlighten.
Across languages
Translations
5 source translations are retained for this English entry.
Dutch:
verduisteren
— to render dark or darker
Hungarian:
besötétít
— to render dark or darker
Hungarian:
elsötétít
— to render dark or darker
Swedish:
förmörka
— to render dark or darker
Hungarian:
elhomályosít
— to obscure, to obfuscate; to confound
