in tenebrisadv.

1587 W. Harrison Hist. Descr. Iland Brit. (new ed.) i. iv. 6/1 in Holinshed's Chron. (new ed.) I Wherefore the resolution of this point must still remaine In tenebris.

1602 W. Fulbecke Pandectes iii. viii. f. 60 Such families, whether of loue, or of lust, I can not well define, which delight in latebris, are worthy to be sent ad carceres, that they may there liue in tenebris.

1671 J. Dryden Evening's Love iv. 65 But, how she lost it, and how it came upon your Finger, I am yet in tenebris.

1726 D. Defoe Polit. Hist. Devil ii. i. 205 The Devil has got an ill name among us, and so he is fain to act more in tenebris, more incog. than he used to do.

1849 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Mar. 291/1 Augustus Caesar, though certainly he had never scrupled to make as many ghosts as suited his convenience, did not like the chance of a visit from them, and never sate alone in tenebris.

1902 Nineteenth Cent. Sept. 452 The MSS. were left to shift for themselves, in cupboards—in tenebris... And in tenebris many were allowed to stay until Mr. Henry Coxe took office in 1860.

1968 L. Glück Firstborn 25 In tenebris the catapulted heart drones Like Andromeda. No one telephones.

2001 Observer (Nexis) 16 Sept. 10 Candles are extinguished with the reciting of each psalm. The congregation is then left ‘in tenebris’—in darkness.