dusken

English

Etymology

dusk +‎ -en

Verb

dusken (third-person singular simple present duskens, present participle duskening, simple past and past participle duskened)

(transitive) To make dusky or obscure.
- 1932, James Joyce, “From a Banned Writer to a Banned Singer”, in The Complete Works of James Joyce‎, published 2016:
  It was last seen and heard of by some macgillic-cuddies above a lonely valley of their reeks, duskening the greylight as it flew, its cry echechohoing among the anfractuosities: pour la dernière fois,' The blackbulled ones, stampeding, drew in their horns, all appailed and much upset, which explaints the guttermilk on their overcoats.
- 1906, George Banghart Henry Swayze, Yarb and Cretine‎, page 123:
  Twilight began to dusken the quiet of the house.
- 1550, Thomas Nichols, The hystory writtone by Thucidides the Athenyan of the warre, translation of History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides:
  The sayd epigrame was not utterly defaced, but only duskened or rased.
(intransitive) To grow or become dusky.
- 1801, Henry James Pye, Alfred:
  Noble you must be: noble too am I / If true the tale that Danewulf loves to tell / When twilight duskens round the crackling logs
- 1945, Grace Livingston Hill, All Through the Night‎:
  He vanished so quickly that she looked down the duskening street in vain to see a stalwart officer, whom she had fully intended to accompany on his way to get a little better acquainted with him.
- 1995 [1924], Dmitri Nabokov, “La Veneziana”, in The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov, translation of original by Vladimir Nabokov:
  When in a meadow, or, as now, in a quiet, already duskening wood, he would involuntarily begin to wonder if, through this silence, he might perhaps hear the entire, enormous world traversing space with a melodious whistle, the bustle of distant cities, the pounding of sea waves, the singing of telegraph wires above the deserts.

Middle English

Alternative forms

desken, duskyn, deskyn, doskin

Etymology

From Old English doxian; equivalent to dosk +‎ -en (infinitival suffix).

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈdɔskən/, /ˈduskən/, /ˈdɛskən/

Verb

dusken (rare)

To become or make dark or dusky.

Conjugation

Conjugation of dusken (weak in -ed)

infinitive	(to) dusken, duske
	present tense	past tense
1st-person singular	duske	dusked
2nd-person singular	duskest	duskedest
3rd-person singular	dusketh	dusked
subjunctive singular	duske	dusked
imperative singular	duske	—

plural¹	dusken, duske	duskeden, duskede
imperative plural	dusketh, duske	—

participles	duskynge, duskende	dusked, ydusked

¹Sometimes used as a formal 2nd-person singular.

Descendants

English: dusk

References

“dusken, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-1-10.