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Glite Dictionary
dimout

dimout

9.9
A partial turning off of city lights to hide it from enemy planes
  • noun
  • /ˈdɪmaʊt/
  • Archaic
translation icon : apagón parcial
  • During the war, the city enforced a dimout every evening to protect against air raids.

Examples

  • Strict dimout regulations were implemented, requiring businesses to shield their windows.

  • The dimout gave the streets an eerie, almost deserted appearance at night.

  • The city implemented a dimout to protect against air raids.

  • During the war, many cities experienced dimouts regularly.

  • During the war, the city enforced a dimout every evening to protect against air raids.

  • Strict dimout regulations were implemented, requiring businesses to shield their windows.

  • The dimout gave the streets an eerie, almost deserted appearance at night.

Synonyms

brownout
vsdimout
  • Archaic
1 9.0

A reduction of city lights at night to hide from enemy planes

is a partial dimming rather than turning lights fully off

Antonyms

illumination
12 4.1

The amount of light in a place or on a surface

How Dark

blackout
  • Archaic
17 5.7
dimout
  • Archaic
9.9
natural light
11 2.2

Surface Forms

dimout singular
dimouts plural

Morphology

dimout = dim (semi-transparent) = out + dim

The components 'dim' and 'out' are clear, but the specific meaning related to wartime light reduction is specialized. [Postprocessing: moved 'out' from base_words to prefix]

Etymology

The word dimout comes from the simple parts dim ('not bright') and out ('off' or 'away'), so it literally means turning lights down or partly off. In wartime a dimout was a partial 'blackout' to make a city less visible to enemy planes, which is why the word now means reducing lights to hide a place.