nigrescent
adjUK /nɪˈɡɹɛsənt/
Etymology From Latin nigrescens, present participle of nigrescere (“to grow black”), from niger (“black”). By surface analysis, Latin nigr(ēre) + -escent. See negro.
1
Approaching blackness; blackish, dark-coloured.
- Pomp of Words Moſt ſplendidly nigrescent1725, Thesaurus ænigmaticus:
- At night the temperature is 250 degrees below zero; by day it is the heat of boiling water. Yet the sun is but an intense circle of white aloft in a nigrescent sky.1958, Jefferson Howard Sutton, “Chapter 9”, in First on the Moon:
1 more example
- [T]he dark death roses came into bloom. I cut them and carried them to Thecla, nigrescent purple flecked with scarlet.1980, Gene Wolfe, chapter X, in The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun; 1), New York: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 99:
- Synonyms
- black
- Derived terms
- nigrescence
- Related terms
- albescent, erubescent, flavescent, virescent