SG Heritage Dictionary

Erebus [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

In mythology, darkness; hence, the region of the dead; a deep and gloomy place; hell.

Erebus [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

1. A place of nether darkness, being the gloomy space through which the souls passed to Hades. See Milton's "Paradise Lost," Book II., line 883.

2. The son of Chaos and brother of Nox, who dwelt in Erebus.

Erebus Encyclopedia Britannica

EREBUS. This word, which denotes darkness, comes probably from the same source as the Greek εpeφω, to cover, and οροφή, a roof, and has by some been connected also with the Hebrew Ereb, night, which reappears in Algarve. In the Hesiodic Theogony, 123, Erebus is, with Nyx, the night, the offspring of Chaos; and Erebus and Nyx become the parents of Aetlier and Hemera, the pure air and the day. In the Odyssey Erebus becomes the abode of all the dead, without reference to the character of their past lives; and from the Iliad it would follow that this abode was within the earth. It is a dreary and cheerless land, the inhabitants of which have no strength either of mind or of body , and thus the idea of Erebus is distinguished from the notion which assigned the righteous dead to Elysium and the wicked to Tartarus. Achilles, who in Elysium inherits a tearless life, declares in Erebus that he would rather toil as a peasant on the earth than be a king in that gloomy abode of departed shades (f)dys. xi. 489).

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 8, p. 520
[183 words — estimated reading time: 2 minutes]

Darkness Roget’s Thesaurus §421

N. d, darkness, ], absence of light, "eldest night and chaos, ancestors of nature", blackness, "the blackness of the noonday night", obscurity, "the prayer of ajax was for light", gloom, murk, dusk, cimmerian darkness, stygian darkness, egyptian darkness, night, midnight, dead of night, witching hour of night, witching time of night, blind man's holiday, darkness visible, darkness that can be felt, palpable obscure, erebus, "the jaws of darkness", "sablevested night", shade, shadow, umbra, penumbra, sciagraphy, obscuration, occultation, adumbration, obumbration, obtenebration, offuscation|, caligation|, extinction, eclipse, total eclipse, gathering of the clouds, shading, distribution of shade, chiaroscuro, noctivagation, black body, hohlraum, black hole, dark star, dark matter, cold dark matter

V. be dark, darken, obscure, shade, dim, tone down, lower, overcast, overshadow, eclipse, obfuscate, offuscate|, obumbrate, adumbrate, cast into the shade becloud, bedim, bedarken, cast a shade, throw a shade, spread a shade, cast a shadow, cast a gloom, throw a shadow, spread a shadow, cast gloom, throw gloom, spread gloom, extinguish, put out, blow out, snuff out, doubt, turn out the lights, douse the lights, dim the lights, turn off the lights, switch off the lights

Adj. dark, darksome, darkling, obscure, tenebrious, sombrous, pitch dark, pitchy, pitch black, caliginous, black, sunless, lightless &c. (see sun , light, ), somber, dusky, unilluminated &c. (see illuminate ), nocturnal, dingy, lurid, gloomy, murky, murksome, shady, umbrageous, overcast, cloudy, darkened, &c. v, dark as pitch, dark as a pit, dark as erebus, benighted, noctivagant, |, noctivagous, |

Adv. in the dark, in the shade

Phr. "brief as the lightning in the collied night" [m

Hell Roget’s Thesaurus §982

N. hell, bottomless pit, place of torment, habitation # of fallen angels, pandemonium, abaddon, domdaniel, jahannan, sheol, hell fire, everlasting fire, everlasting torment, eternal damnation, lake of fire and brimstone, fire that is never quenched, worm that never dies, purgatory, limbo, gehenna, abyss, tartarus, hades, avernus, styx, stygian creek, pit of acheron, cocytus, infernal regions, inferno, shades below, realms of pluto, pluto, rhadamanthus, erebus, tophet

Adj. hellish, infernal, stygian

Phr. dies irae dies illa, "the hue of dungeons and the scowl of night", 2, religious doctrines