caliginous

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word caliginous. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word caliginous, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say caliginous in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word caliginous you have here. The definition of the word caliginous will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofcaliginous, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.

English

WOTD – 28 January 2019

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French caligineux (“misty; obscure”), or directly from its Latin etymon cālīginōsus (“misty; dark, obscure”). Cālīginōsus is derived from cālīgō, cālīginis (“fog, mist, vapour; darkness, gloom”)) + -ōsus (suffix meaning ‘full of, prone to’ forming adjectives from nouns).

Pronunciation

Adjective

caliginous (comparative more caliginous, superlative most caliginous)

  1. (archaic or literary) Dark, obscure; murky.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:dark
    Antonyms: see Thesaurus:shining
    • 1809, Edward Wells, “Of St. Paul’s Travels and Voyages into Phrygia, Galatia, Mysia, Troas, Macedonia, Achaia, &c. till His Fourth Return to Jerusalem, after His Conversion”, in An Historical Geography of the Old and New Testament: In Two Volumes, volume II, Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, →OCLC, section I (Of St. Paul’s Travels, from His Leaving Jerusalem, after the Council there Held, to His Departure out of the Asiatic Continent for Europe), page 258:
      Hierapolis is ſeated over-againſt Laodicea, where are to be ſeen baths of hot waters, and the Plutonium. [...] The Plutonium is under the brow of the hill, the entrance into which is no wider than that a man can thruſt himſelf through; yet it is very deep within, of a quadrangular form, containing about the compaſs of half an acre, and is filled with ſuch a thick and caliginous air, that the ground cannot be ſeen.
    • 1869 November, “The Land of the Malay: A Record of Travel in the Oriental Tropics”, in [Thomas] Mayne Reid, editor, Onward: A Magazine for the Young Manhood of America, New York, N.Y.: Onward Publishing Office, →OCLC, page 491:
      By the time breakfast was announced, the land had faded into a thin caliginous streak; and, except passing a huge unwieldy Chinese junk, which lay at anchor, though her lateen sails were hoisted, nothing worthy of note occurred during the day.
    • 1981, T[homas] Coraghessan Boyle, “The Niger”, in Water Music, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, →ISBN; republished London: Granta Books, 1998, →ISBN, page 155:
      Inside the atmosphere was rank and caliginous: fumes rose from puddles, groans sifted through the shadows.
    • 2010, Francis Wheen, Strange Days Indeed: The Golden Age of Paranoia, paperback edition, London: Fourth Estate, HarperCollins Publishers, →ISBN, page 21:
      They say the darkest hour is just before the dawn, and caliginous thoughts often swirled through his murky, insomniac mind as he lay awake [...]

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

dark, obscure — see dark,‎ murky

References

  1. ^ “caliginous, adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1888; “caliginous”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia