dusky
/ˈdʌs.ki/
dusky adjective: dimly lit, as at dusk (evening).
Adjective
dusky (comparative duskier, superlative duskiest)
- Dimly lit, as at dusk (evening).
- I like it when it is dusky, just before the street lights come on.
- A beech wood with silver firs in it rolled down the face of the hill, and the maze of leafless twigs and dusky spires cut sharp against the soft blueness of the evening sky.1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 1, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC
- Having a shade of color that is rather dark.
- The dusky rose was of a muted color, not clashing with any of the other colors.
- Dark-skinned.
- You have your lovers - dusky beaus / Not made of the poetic stuff / That sports an Apollonian nose, / And wears a sleek Byronic cuff.1877, Henry Kendall, “Ode to a Black Gin”, in The Australian Town and Country Journal, page 24
- I think that he was a little horrified at my cool way of taking the honour, but the fact was that I did not feel overwhelmed with gratitude at the prospect of seeing some savage, dusky queen, however absolute and mysterious she might be, more especially as my mind was full of dear Leo, for whose...1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC
- Ashen; having a greyish skin coloration.
- The patient was in shock and had a dusky skin tone.
Noun
dusky (plural duskies)
- A dusky shark.
- A dusky dolphin.
- A dusky grouse.
dusky meaning in Urdu, Malayalam, Kannada and Gujarati
dusky in Urdu
- dusky, dark
- لیلی lailā
dusky in Malayalam
- dim, shadowy, dark
- നിഴൽമൂടിയ, മങ്ങിയ, അല്പം ഇരുണ്ട, വെളിച്ചം മങ്ങിയ, ഛായാത്മകമായ, മങ്ങലായ
- dark-skinned, dark, olive-skinned
- കറുത്തനിറമുള്ള, തൊലികറുത്ത, ഇരുണ്ട നിറമായ, കറുത്ത, കരിന്തവിട്ടുനിറമുള്ള, കരിവീട്ടിയുടെ നിറമുള്ള
dusky in Kannada
- ಮಾಸರ, ಎರೆ, ಮಬ್ಬು, ಮರ್ವು, ಮಂಪರ, ಮಂಪರು
dusky in Gujarati
- dusky, dark-skinned
- શામ śām
More languagesFewer languages
- dusky in Persian
- گردناک gardnâk, سیاهگون siyâhgun
Examples of dusky in a sentence
- Darker questions still emerge in these dusky final weeks of our interregnum.
- History is littered with our indifference—dodo birds, great auks, 24-rayed sunstars, dusky seaside sparrows, Bernard’s wolves.
- In the dusky streets around me ruled an innocent and open copulation.
Synonyms of dusky
Forms of dusky
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | duskier |
| superlative | duskiest |
| Noun | |
| plural | duskies |
Origin of dusky
From dusk + -y.
Words formed from dusky
Phrases with dusky
- dusky tits
- dusky shark
- dusky titis
- dusky grouse
- dusky sharks
- dusky grouses
- dusky knights
- dusky nerites
- dusky dolphins
- dusky groupers
- dusky thrushes
- dusky warblers
4 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with dusky
Questions about dusky
- What does dusky mean?
- Dusky means dimly lit, as at dusk (evening).
- What is dusky in Urdu?
- Dusky in Urdu is لیلی (lailā). See Dusky meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is dusky?
- Dusky can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce dusky?
- Dusky is pronounced /ˈdʌs.ki/.
Words near dusky in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dusky (page history and authors); لیلی (Urdu) (page history and authors); dusky (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); dusky (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); શામ (Gujarati) (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dusky.ogg.
Cite this entry: “dusky.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dusky. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.