- dark
[dark 词源字典] - dark: [OE] Dark comes ultimately from a Germanic base *derk-, *dark-, which also produced Old High German tarchanjan ‘hide’ and Middle Low German dork ‘place where dirt collects’ (outside Germanic, Lithuanian dargus has been compared). In Old English the word usually denoted absence of light, particularly with reference to ‘night’; the application to colours did not develop until the 16th century.
[dark etymology, dark origin, 英语词源] - dark (adj.)
- Old English deorc "dark, obscure, gloomy; sad, cheerless; sinister, wicked," from Proto-Germanic *derkaz (cognates: Old High German tarchanjan "to hide, conceal"). "Absence of light" especially at night is the original meaning. Application to colors is 16c. Theater slang for "closed" is from 1916.
- dark (n.)
- early 13c., from dark (adj.). Figurative in the dark "ignorant" first recorded 1670s.
