darkly

dark +‎ -ly.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdɑːkli/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdɑɹkli/

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• Hyphenation: dark‧ly

darkly (comparative darklier or more darkly, superlative darkliest or most darkly)

1. With a dark appearance.

   Synonyms: blackly, sably

   • 1846, R[obert] S[tephen] Hawker, “The Wreck”, in Echoes from Old Cornwall, London: Joseph Masters, […], OCLC 3365560, stanza X, page 76:

     And still when loudliest howls the storm, / And darkliest lowers his native sky, / The king's fierce soul is in that form, / The warrior's spirit threatens nigh!

   • 1906 October 4, “Light Colors for Machine Tools”, in Charles Kirchhoff, Geo[rge] W. Cope, and A. I. Findley, editors, The Iron Age, volume LXXVIII, New York, N.Y.: David Williams Company […], OCLC 397407268, page 877, column 1:

     Darkly painted machinery takes a great deal of light out of a shop; the rays seem to be absorbed into the somber pigments.

   • 1998, John Minch, “Geology Roadlog”, in Lowell Lindsay and William G. Hample, editors, Geology and Geothermal Resources of the Imperial and Mexicali Valleys (San Diego Association of Geologists – Annual Field Trip Guides), San Diego, Calif.: San Diego Association of Geologists, →ISBN, pages 30–31:

     Cerro Colorado is composed of granitic rocks covered with a dark-colored desert varnish. The Sierra Cucapa are a lighter reddish-brown and lie in the background on the far side of Laguna Salada. They are also covered with a patina of desert varnish but not as darkly as the surface of Cerro Colorado. […] A minor weathering feature of the desert is a thin, shiny, reddish-brown to blackish coating called desert varnish that occurs on some desert rocks.

   • 2016, Yehiel Yeshaia Trunk; Anna Clarke, transl., chapter 21, in Piotr J. Wróbel and ‎Robert M. Shapiro, editors, Poyln: My Life within Jewish Life in Poland, Sketches and Images, Toronto, Ont.; Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, →ISBN, page 149:

     He saw how the candlesticks shone darkly in the vicinity of the diamond flames in Shevele's ears and on her silk dress collar.

2. Faintly seen in the dark.

   I could make out his image darkly.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, 1 Corinthians 1:12:

     For now we ſee through a glaſſe darkley: but then face to face: now I know in part, but then ſhall I know euen as alſo I am knowen.

   • 1651, Peter Bulkeley [i.e., Peter Bulkley], “The Second Difference, that the One was More Dark, the Other Gives Clearer Light”, in The Gospel-covenant; or, The Covenant of Grace Opened. […], 2nd enlarged and corrected edition, London: Printed by Matthew Simmons, […], OCLC 896193833, page 168:

     Secondly, The Covenant was then revealed more darkly and obſcurely, but now the diſpenſation of it, is more cleare and evident: the light is now marvellous, it is as the Sunne ſhining at noone-day. […] Though it was revealed before, yet it was but darkly, but now it is revealed more clearly ſince the coming of our Saviour Chriſt; […]

   • 1930, Ivan Lukash; Natalie Duddington, transl., chapter VIII, in The Flames of Moscow: Translated from the Russian, London: Peter Davies, OCLC 17991090, page 92:

     With his hands behind his back he walked through the echoing rooms. In the reddish mist his shadow flitted darkly across the mirrors on the walls.

3. (figuratively) In a morbid manner; morbidly, sinisterly.

   a darkly comic dystopian drama

   • 1814, Lord Byron, The Corsair, a Tale, London: Printed by Thomas Davison, […], for John Murray, […], OCLC 1061889661, canto I, stanza IX, lines 225–228, page 12:

     There was a laughing Devil in his sneer, / That raised emotions both of rage and fear; / And where his frown of hatred darkly fell, / Hope withering fled—and Mercy sighed farewell!

   • 2018 February, Robert Draper, “They are Watching You—and Everything Else on the Planet: Technology and Our Increasing Demand for Security have Put Us All under Surveillance. Is Privacy Becoming just a Memory?”, in National Geographic‎, Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, ISSN 0027-9358, OCLC 1049714034, archived from the original on 14 June 2018:

     By visible evidence, this Saturday morning is a comparatively placid one. Earlier in the week a young man had died after being stabbed in a flat, and from the overpass at Archway Road, darkly referred to as “suicide bridge,” another man had jumped to his death.

4. (figuratively) Mysteriously; forebodingly, ominously.

   Synonym: threateningly

   • 1845, Friedrich Schiller; James Clarence Mangan, transl., “The Diver. A Ballad.”, in Anthologia Germanica. German Anthology: A Series of Translations from the Most Popular of the German Poets. [...] In Two Volumes, volume I, Dublin: William Curry, Jun. and Company; London: Longmans, Brown and Co., OCLC 37340552, page 39:

     But the God I had cried to answer me / When my destiny darkliest frowned, / And He showed me a reef of rocks in the sea, / Whereunto I clung, and there I found / On a coral jag the goblet of gold, / Which else to the lowermost crypt had rolled.

   • 1849, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1850, OCLC 3968433, canto CXXVII, page 199:

     Strange friend, past, present, and to be, / Loved deeplier, darklier understood; / Behold I dream a dream of good / And mingle all the world with thee.

   • 1859 November 26 – 1860 August 25​, [William] Wilkie Collins, “Hartright’s Narrative”, in The Woman in White. A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, Franklin Square, published 1860, OCLC 558180353, part II, section IX, page 212, column 1:

     Certain portions of the conversation of the talkative old clerk, which had wearied me at the time, now recurred to my memory with a new significance; and a suspicion crossed my mind darkly, which had not occurred to me while I was in the vestry.

   • 1976, James Monaco, “Truffaut: Intimate Politics: L’Enfant sauvage, Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent, Une Belle Fille comme moi, La Nuit américaine”, in The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 92:

     Pierrot the photographer is utterly mute; always lurking darkly in the background and probing unwanted with his camera, he is the "foreboding presence" in this film [La Nuit américaine (Day for Night, 1973) by François Truffaut], as the television actor was in Domicile conjugal.