English Explanatory Dictionary

Dark Ages

English dictionary entry

Meanings

name
  1. The period of European history encompassing (roughly) 476–1000 CE.
  2. The Greek Dark Ages (c. 1100–750 BCE).
  3. The dark ages of Cambodia (c. 1450–1863).
  4. The dark ages of Laos (c. 1707–1893).
  5. The Dark Ages, 380 thousand to about 1 billion years after the Big Bang.
  6. Any relatively primitive period of time.
noun
  1. Alternative letter-case form of Dark Ages.
noun
  1. plural of dark age
name
  1. Alternative letter-case form of Dark Ages.

Pronunciation

/ˈdɑːˌkeɪd͡ʒɪz/

Word forms

Dark Ages the Dark Ages Dark Age darke ages

Etymology

The phrase appears in writing of the English Reformation by Richard Sibbes (1620) and by George Abbot (1624), the archbishop of Canterbury. Both authors use it to refer to the period of papal supremacy before the Reformation. The earliest citation in Oxford English Dictionary is dated 1687. Use is specific to English therefore not likely to be from Latin.

Synonyms

Early Middle Ages
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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