Dictionary

tenebricose en · ADJ

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin tenebricōsus (“full of darkness or gloom”), from tenebricus (“dark, gloomy”) + -ose (“full of”).

Meanings

1. (rare) Full of darkness; gloomy, tenebrous.
   • 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:
   • […] 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, which is the sphere, and how much to the subject, which is himself, in his quality of cylindrical mirror. 1817, Thomas Love Peacock, “Cimmerian Lodge”, in Melincourt, volume III, London: Printed for T[homas] Hookham, →OCLC, page 40:
   • 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. Fisher, & P. Jackson, published 1833, Poetry, page 278:
   • 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:
   • 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 Blakeman, →OCLC, page 113:

Forms