tenebricose
tenebricose adjective: full of darkness; gloomy, tenebrous.
Adjective
tenebricose (comparative more tenebricose, superlative most tenebricose)
- Full of darkness; gloomy, tenebrous.
- Tene′bricose. […] Dark; gloomy.[1755 April 15, Samuel Johnson, “Tene′bricose”, in A Dictionary of the English Language: […], volume II (L–Z), London: […] J[ohn] and P[aul] Knapton; […], →OCLC, column 1
- […] but he has grown wiser since he has been in my library; and by reflecting very deeply on the degree in which the manner of his construction might influence the forms of his perception, has taken a very opaque and tenebricose view of how much of the spheroidical perception belongs to the object...1817, Thomas Love Peacock, “Cimmerian Lodge”, in Melincourt, volume III, London: Printed for T[homas] Hookham, →OCLC, page 40
Examples of tenebricose in a sentence
- Verse was the elder born—plain prose / Came limping on in after ages; / When mind became tenebricose, / And dulness reign’d on all its pages.1833 March 9, Josh Marsden, “An Apology for a Minister’s Writing Verse, […] ”, in The Imperial Magazine, volume III, London: H. Fisher, R....
- The usual tenebricose ensigns of majesty which distinguish Pluto, are a key instead of a sceptre, and an ebony crown.1856, Joseph B. Gross, chapter II, in The Heathen Religion in its Popular and Symbolical Development, New York: Sheldon, Lamport and...
- More luminous smiles—from a broad-cheeked face dark as the tenebricose pit.1983, Samuel R. Delany, Neveryóna, or, The Tale of Signs and Cities, Toronto; New York: Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 377:
Forms of tenebricose
| comparative | more tenebricose |
|---|---|
| superlative | most tenebricose |
Origin of tenebricose
Learned borrowing from Latin tenebricōsus (“full of darkness or gloom”), from tenebricus (“dark, gloomy”) + -ose (“full of”).
Questions about tenebricose
- What does tenebricose mean?
- Tenebricose means full of darkness; gloomy, tenebrous.
- How do you use tenebricose in a sentence?
- Verse was the elder born—plain prose / Came limping on in after ages; / When mind became tenebricose, / And dulness reign’d on all its pages.
- What part of speech is tenebricose?
- Tenebricose is an adjective.
Words near tenebricose in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tenebricose (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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Cite this entry: “tenebricose.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tenebricose. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.