| 释义 |
tenebrific, a.|tɛnɪˈbrɪfɪk|
[f. (? mod.L. tenebrific-us, f.) L. tenebræ darkness: see -fic.]
Causing or producing darkness; obscuring. (In quot. 1785 loosely for ‘dark, gloomy’.)
tenebrific stars or tenebrific constellations: see tenebrificous.
1785Burns Ep. to Davie x, It lightens, it brightens, The tenebrific scene. 1825Carlyle Schiller iii. (1873) 99 Its interpreters with us have been like ‘tenebrific stars’. 1827― Misc. Ess., St. Germ. Lit. (1840) I. 92 These are its ‘tenebrific constellation’, from which it ‘doth ray out darkness’ over the earth. 1848Lowell Biglow P. Poems 1890 II. 113 Grammar, a topic rendered only more tenebrific by the labors of his successors. 1858Carlyle Fredk. Gt. iv. i. I. 383 Books done by pedants and tenebrific persons under the name of men. 1868Browning Ring & Bk. iii. 789 Now begins The tenebrific passage of the tale.
So teneˈbrificate v. trans. rare, to darken, obfuscate; † teneˈbrificous a. Obs., tenebrific.
c1743in Mem. Eliz. Carter (1808) II. 147 The complete science of circumlocution, and the whole art of confounding, perplexing, puzzling, and *tenebrificating a subject.
16..‘W. Ramsey’ quoted in Spectator: see next quot., There are *tenebrificous and dark stars, by whose influence night is brought on, and which do ray out darkness and obscurity upon the earth as the sun does light. 1714Spect. No. 582 ⁋5, I could mention several Authors who are tenebrificous Stars of the first Magnitude. 1852K. H. Digby Compitum VI. 8. |