- Light diminished in intensity as a result of the interception of the rays; partial darkness.
- An area or a space of partial darkness.
- Cover or shelter provided by interception by an object of the sun or its rays.
- Any of various devices used to reduce or screen light or heat.
- shades Slang. Sunglasses.
- Relative obscurity.
- shades
- Dark shadows gathering at dusk: "The shades of night are falling fast" (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow).
- The abode of the dead; the underworld.
- The part of a picture or photograph depicting darkness or shadow.
- The degree to which a color is mixed with black or is decreasingly illuminated; gradation of darkness.
- A slight difference or variation; a nuance: shades of meaning.
- A small amount; a trace: detected a shade of bitterness in her remarks.
- A disembodied spirit; a ghost.
- shades A present reminder of a person or situation in the past: shades of my high-school days.
v., shad·ed, shad·ing, shades. v.tr.
- To screen from light or heat.
- To obscure or darken.
- To cause shade in or on.
- To represent degrees of shade or shadow in: shade a drawing.
- To produce (gradations of light or color) in a drawing or picture.
- To change or vary by slight degrees: shade the meaning.
- To make a slight reduction in: shade prices.
To pass from one quality, color, or thing to another by very slight changes or degrees.
[Middle English, from Old English sceadu.]
shader shad'er n.SYNONYMS shade, penumbra, shadow, umbra, umbrage. These nouns denote an area of comparative darkness resulting from the blocking of light rays: sitting in the shade; Earth's penumbra; in the shadow of the curtains; the umbra beyond the footlights; in the umbrage of a forest. See also synonyms at nuance.





