[f. SOMBRE a.]
1. trans. To make sombre.
1787. Ann Hilditch, Rosa de Montmorien, II. 52. Life, like … the iris bow, is beheld glowing in vivid charms, or sombred by gloom.
1807. Sir R. Wilson, in Life (1862), II. vii. 208. Our entertainment was somewhat sombred by the intelligence.
1825. Blackw. Mag., XVII. 44. The midnight moon Looks sombred o’er the forests.
1873. Morley, Rousseau, I. 315. One … whose imagination, already sombred by the triumphant cruelty and superstition which raged around him, was suddenly struck with horror.
2. intr. To become or grow somber.
1848. Tait’s Mag., XV. 422. The picture sombred.
1893. Temple Bar, XCIX. 43. Day again had sombred into night.
Hence Sombred, Somb(e)ring ppl. adjs.
1849. Whittier, Lakeside, 28. This lake … Walled round with sombering pines.
1873. Masson, Drumm. of Hawth., xx. 453. The russet and the yellow coming in patches amid the doubly sombred green.
