👾 A shadowy being 🌙 At night 🌑 Mysteriously dark

darkling

1 9.9

A small shadowy creature in stories that hides in the dark

noun
/ˈdɑrk.lɪŋ/

Literature

: ser oscuro

I just saw a darkling.
darkling beetle

Examples

On a darkling plain.

Fiction book (1990)
I just saw the same darkling you saw last night.

The Covenant (2006)
I saw the darkling again.

The Covenant (2006)
In this domain, the pass acquires something of a darkling's charm.

Fiction book (2001)
In the village, the children whispered tales of a darkling that roamed the forest at night.
The darkling was said to guide lost travelers to safety with its faint glow.
Legends spoke of a darkling that could only be seen under the light of a full moon.

Synonyms

goblin

vsdarkling

Literature

105 8.3

A small, ugly creature that causes trouble for people

is less about causing trouble and more about being shadowy or mysterious

grue

vsdarkling

NSFW

1 9.9

A monster in stories and games that lives in darkness and eats people

is usually not shown as dangerous and can be neutral or mysterious

Compounds

darkling beetle

1 9.1

A dark, hard-bodied beetle whose young often eat dead plants or stored grain

darkling ground beetle

9.5

A slow hard-bodied black beetle that lives on the ground whose young eat rotting plants or stored grain

Surface Forms

darkling singular

darklings plural

Morphology

darkling = dark (semi-transparent) = dark + ling

Formed from 'dark' + the diminutive/agentive '-ling' to mean a little or personified being of darkness; morphologically clear but semantically literary/fantastical.

Etymology

Darkling as a noun is built from dark and -ling, with -ling meaning 'little' or 'young', so a darkling is like a 'little dark one', a small shadowy creature in stories.