Nigrescent
/naɪˈɡrɛsənt/noun
Becoming black or darkening in color.
Did you know?Nigrescent comes from Latin nigrescere, a verb for “to grow black,” and it survives in English as a rare learned word used in science and description rather than everyday speech.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*neigʷ-
“to wash, to be dark or blacken”
Latin
Latin
niger
“black, dark”
Latin
Latin
nigrescere
“to become black, darken”
Late Middle English / Early Modern English
English
nigrescent
“becoming black or darkening”
Modern English
English
nigrescent
“becoming black or dark in color”