TOTAL DARKNESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does total darkness mean? 

• TOTAL DARKNESS (noun)
  The noun TOTAL DARKNESS has 1 sense:

1. total absence of light

  Familiarity information: TOTAL DARKNESS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TOTAL DARKNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Total absence of light

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

black; blackness; lightlessness; pitch blackness; total darkness

Context example:

in the black of night

Hypernyms ("total darkness" is a kind of...):

dark; darkness (absence of light or illumination)

 Context examples 

The maturity of the stars seen in MACS1149-JD1 raises the question of when the very first galaxies emerged from total darkness, an epoch astronomers romantically term “cosmic dawn”.

(ALMA and VLT Find Evidence for Stars Forming Just 250 Million Years After Big Bang, ESO)

Though in total darkness, I followed his progress by its sound.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I was left in total darkness.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The seafloor is an alien landscape, with crushing pressures, near-total darkness and fluids wafting from cracks in the Earth's crust.

(Giant group of octopus moms discovered in the deep sea, National Science Foundation)

Blaize Castle remained her only comfort; towards that, she still looked at intervals with pleasure; though rather than be disappointed of the promised walk, and especially rather than be thought ill of by the Tilneys, she would willingly have given up all the happiness which its walls could supply—the happiness of a progress through a long suite of lofty rooms, exhibiting the remains of magnificent furniture, though now for many years deserted—the happiness of being stopped in their way along narrow, winding vaults, by a low, grated door; or even of having their lamp, their only lamp, extinguished by a sudden gust of wind, and of being left in total darkness.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

At last, however, by touching a secret spring, an inner compartment will open—a roll of paper appears—you seize it—it contains many sheets of manuscript—you hasten with the precious treasure into your own chamber, but scarcely have you been able to decipher 'Oh! Thou—whomsoever thou mayst be, into whose hands these memoirs of the wretched Matilda may fall'—when your lamp suddenly expires in the socket, and leaves you in total darkness.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)