tenebrae

With regressive dissimilation (*m-b > n-b) from *temabrāi, nominalized feminine plural from Proto-Italic *temazros (“dark”), from Proto-Indo-European *temH-(e)s-ro-, from *temH-. Related to temere.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈte.ne.brae̯/, [ˈt̪ɛnɛbräe̯]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈte.ne.bre/, [ˈt̪ɛːnebre]
• (Classical) IPA^(key): /teˈneb.rae̯/, [t̪ɛˈnɛbräe̯]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /teˈneb.re/, [t̪eˈnɛbre]

tenebrae f pl (genitive tenebrārum); first declension

1. darkness, especially the darkness of night

   Antonym: lūx

   • 405 CE, Jerome, Vulgate Genesis.1.2:

     Terra autem erat inanis et vacua et tenebrae super faciem abyssi et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas.

     And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters.

2. (poetic) shadow of death
3. prison, dungeon

   Synonym: carcer

4. (by extension) gloom or darkness of the mind

First-declension noun, plural only.

• “tenebrae”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “tenebrae”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• tenebrae in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• tenebrae in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette