(as) black as night
Completely black; totally without light or color. The basement gives me the creeps, it's as black as night down there! A: "I can't believe that Grandma's hair used to be black as night." B: "Well, sure—you've only ever known her with gray hair." My hands were black as night after working on that filthy engine all day.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
black as night
Also, black as coal or pitch . Totally black; also, very dark. For example, The well was black as night, or She had eyes that were black as coal. These similes have survived while others-black as ink, a raven, thunder, hell, the devil, my hat, the minister's coat, the ace of spades-are seldom if ever heard today. Of the current objects of comparison, pitch may be the oldest, so used in Homer's Iliad (c. 850 b.c.), and coal is mentioned in a Saxon manuscript from a.d. 1000. John Milton used black as night in Paradise Lost (1667).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
black as night/pitch/the ace of spades
Very dark indeed. To these overused similes one can add ink (Spenser, Shakespeare), the crow or raven (Petronius, Chaucer), soot (John Ray’s proverbs, 1678), ebony (Shakespeare), and coal (Chaucer). The comparison to night (and also midnight) was more common in the nineteenth century, although Milton also used it (Paradise Lost), whereas black as pitch dates from Homer’s time (Iliad).
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer