Literary notes about Tenebrious (AI summary)
The term "tenebrious" is employed by writers to convey an ambiance steeped in deep, shadow-like gloom and mystery. It often functions as a descriptor for landscapes and atmospheres where light appears to struggle against overwhelming obscurity, as in a glimmer of lightning breaking through an impenetrable black curtain [1] or the hesitant shades lingering near a doorway [2]. At times, it encapsulates both the natural world's grandeur and its inherent darkness—a forest of redwoods, for instance, emerges as remarkably stark against its surroundings [3]. The word also evokes a struggle between luminescence and shadow, whether it is the bright spears dispelling mist [4] or a long vista lost in shadow [5]. Its usage extends even to intimate character reflections and metaphysical imagery, such as addressing the unknown in a personal, enigmatic fashion [6] or recording observations that blend the celestial with the somber [7][8][9].
- All this therefore passes before him with a tenebrious glimmer; like lightning faintly penetrating to a man behind a thick black curtain.
— from An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance by John Foster - Several tenebrious shades appear in the lighted doorway and hesitate on the two steps that lead down into the unlit room.
— from Dear Brutus by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie - On its three lower tables the mountain is green and bare; then abruptly rises a forest of redwoods, tall, rigid, tenebrious.
— from The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton - No life-problem need remain unsolved with their bright spears to drive the tenebrious mists before them.
— from Life: Its True Genesis by Horatius Flaccus - Inside he gazed through a long vista under a roof lost in tenebrious shadow.
— from The Three Black Pennys: A Novel by Joseph Hergesheimer - XII "Good-morning, my tenebrious Unknown.
— from The Devourers by Annie Vivanti - Some of Sir William Herschel's observations appear to indicate an association between these tenebrious spots and neighboring star clouds and nebulæ.
— from Curiosities of the Sky by Garrett Putman Serviss - CHAPTER XV NIGHT TENEBRIOUS Aimless, almost mindless, Rhoda Bowden dragged herself away from the valley under Black Tor.
— from The Virgin in Judgment by Eden Phillpotts - Tenebrious was a great word with Tom about this time.
— from Mary Marston by George MacDonald
