dusky

Etymology

dusk + -y

adj

1. Dimly lit, as at dusk (evening).
   I like it when it is dusky, just before the street lights come on.
   A beech wood with silver firs in it rolled down the face of the hill, and the maze of leafless twigs and dusky spires cut sharp against the soft blueness of the evening sky. 1907, Harold Bindloss, chapter 1, in The Dust of Conflict
2. Having a shade of color that is rather dark.
   The dusky rose was of a muted color, not clashing with any of the other colors.
3. (dated, literary) Dark-skinned.
   You have your lovers - dusky beaus / Not made of the poetic stuff / That sports an Apollonian nose, / And wears a sleek Byronic cuff. 1877, Henry Kendall, “Ode to a Black Gin”, in The Australian Town and Country Journal, page 24
   They "stuck on" fairly well, but sometimes these dusky jockeys fell off during the race. 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 63
   The dusky sons of Mohammed have been having a high old time down at the British India Company’s wharves during the past few days. [. . .] It was the great week of ‘Hobson-Jobson,’ as it is known out East, or the time of the Mohurram. 8 Apr 1903, Queensland Figaro, Brisbane, page 23, column 2
   In the raw attempt to apply the perfected institutions of Anglo-Saxon civilization to the descendants of the dusky races which inhabited Mexico before the discovery of America by Columbus, the Mexican statesmen of 1824 put the principles of democratic government to a terrible ordeal. 1911, James Creelman, Diaz: Master of Mexico, D. Appleton and Company, page v
4. Ashen; having a greyish skin coloration.
   The patient was in shock and had a dusky skin tone.

noun

1. A dusky shark.
2. A dusky dolphin.
3. A dusky grouse.