Word.ws English Dictionary

dark as Egypt

/ˌdɑːk‿əz ˈiːd͡ʒɪpt/US/ˌdɑɹk‿əz ˈid͡ʒɪpt/

dark as Egypt adjective: extremely dark.

Adjective

dark as Egypt (not comparable)

  1. (dated, simile) Extremely dark.
    • Rich[ard]. He muſt have a havvk's eye to ſee the ſtars this evening. VVhy don't you knovv, Jack, it is cloudy out a'doors? / Jack. That's nothing vvith him. He could look through the clouds vvith his glaſs, if it vvas as dark as Egypt, as eaſy as you can look into the other room; or, if he had a...1797 May, [David] Everett, “The Conjurer, a Dialogue”, in Caleb Bingham, The Columbian Orator: Containing a Variety of Original and Selected Pieces; together with Rules; Calculated to Improve Youth...
    • ["][I]t's a long way to the stable, and no one to send." / "I'll go." / "No, indeed; it's past ten, and dark as Egypt. […] I'll rest till Hannah comes, and then do the best I can."1868, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, “The Laurence Boy”, in Little Women: […], 1st part, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1869, →OCLC, page 50

Examples of dark as Egypt in a sentence

  • His subsequent appointments were: […] 1861–2, Roxbury, where he remarked that the first year was as dark as Egypt, but the second was a time of miracles, financially and spiritually; […]1869, “Memoirs. Rev. Samuel Tupper.”, in Minutes of the Seventieth Session of the New-England Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal...
  • The place was dark as Egypt, but she struck a match, and breathed again.1937, Dorothy L[eigh] Sayers, “[Prothalamion] Prickly Pear”, in Busman’s Honeymoon: A Love Story with Detective Interruptions, 1st American...
  • Though only mid-afternoon, it was dark as Egypt.2015 March, S[usan] K. Salzer, chapter 4, in Frontier, Pinnacle Books, Kensington Publishing Corp., →ISBN, page 37:

Synonyms of dark as Egypt

27 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Origin of dark as Egypt

From dark (adjective) + as + Egypt, referring to the ninth of the ten Plagues of Egypt which God inflicted on the Egyptians to convince the Pharaoh to free the enslaved Israelites, described in Exodus 10:21–23 of the Bible (King James Version, spelling modernized): “And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven: and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.”

Questions about dark as Egypt

What does dark as Egypt mean?
Dark as Egypt means extremely dark.
How do you use dark as Egypt in a sentence?
His subsequent appointments were: […] 1861–2, Roxbury, where he remarked that the first year was as dark as Egypt, but the second was a time of miracles, financially and spiritually; […]
What part of speech is dark as Egypt?
Dark as Egypt is an adjective.
How do you pronounce dark as Egypt?
Dark as Egypt is pronounced /ˌdɑːk‿əz ˈiːd͡ʒɪpt/ (UK).

Words near dark as Egypt in the dictionary

  1. Dark and Bloody Ground State
  2. dark and stormies
  3. dark and stormy
  4. dark art
  5. dark arts
  6. dark as Egypt
  7. dark as pitch
  8. dark as the inside of a cow
  9. dark blue
  10. dark blue snakeweed
  11. dark blues

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dark as Egypt (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dark as Egypt.wav.

Cite this entry: “dark as Egypt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dark_as_egypt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.