darkside

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See also: dark side and dark-side

English[edit]

WOTD – 4 May 2022

Etymology[edit]

The darkside (sense 3.1) or farside of the Moon, which permanently faces away from the Earth, imaged in 2015 by the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite operated by the U.S.A.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

From dark +‎ side. Sense 2.1 (“side that is evil”) was popularized by the film Star Wars (1977; later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope) where the term was used to describe the aspect of a metaphysical power called the Force which could be used to act aggressively and perpetrate evil.[1]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

darkside (countable and uncountable, plural darksides)

  1. (countable) The side of something that is in darkness or unlit, or has less illumination.
    • 1985 December, Martin Caidin, chapter 21, in Killer Station, New York, N.Y.: Baen Enterprises, →ISBN, page 299:
      She checked their orbital position. She would have perhaps ten more minutes in darkside. The earth itself was a massive radiation shield between the station and the sun, and she would be perfectly safe.
    • 1987, David J. Bents, High Temperature Solid Oxide Regenerative Fuel Cell for Solar Photovoltaic Energy Storage […] (NASA Technical Memorandum; 89872; AIAA-87-9203)‎[1], Cleveland, Oh.: Lewis Research Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, archived from the original on 17 July 2021, abstract, page 1, column 1:
      This paper describes a hydrogen–oxygen regenerative fuel cell (RFC) energy storage system based on high temperature solid oxide fuel (SOFC) technology. […] The system functions as a secondary battery and is applicable to darkside energy storage for solar photovoltaics.
    • 2005, P. Chandrasekhar et al., “Far-IR-through-visible Electrochromics Based on Conducting Polymers for Spacecraft Thermal Control and Military Uses”, in Samson A[lly] Jenekhe, Douglas J. Kiserow, editors, Chromogenic Phenomena in Ppolymers: Tunable Optical Properties (ACS Symposium Series; 888), Washington, D.C.: American Chemical Society, →ISBN, page 67:
      The spacecraft requirement stems from the need for spacecraft to conserve heat, and thus battery power, when not exposed to sunlight ("darkside"), to reflect heat when facing the Sun, and, on occasion, to emit excess heat on the darkside.
  2. (countable, figuratively) The side of something that is metaphorically dark, i.e. evil, distressing or otherwise undesirable; the negative aspect of something.
    Near-synonym: downside
    • 2003, Mattias Gardell, “Hail Loki! Hail Satan! Hail Hitler! Darkside Asatrú, Satanism, and Occult National Socialism”, in Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism, Durham, N.C., London: Duke University Press, →ISBN, page 305:
      [B]lack metal is by definition concerned with the occult as seen in its lyrical fixation with Satan or darkside tribal paganism.
    • 2004, Philip M. LaVoie, “Introduction”, in Nightmare Puzzle: A Collection of Short Pieces, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page vii:
      "Why horror?" she'd ask, adding to her opinion that, "What sells is love stories, romance. A good drama." And so I'd ask myself, why indeed dwell into t[he] darkside of literature? Does it make me happy to figure out new ways to cause people's death?
    • 2007, L[eslie] E[sdaile] Banks, chapter 13, in The Cursed: A Vampire Huntress Legend, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Griffin, →ISBN, page 338:
      People, the darkside already knows who we are, so it's not like we're blowing our cover, they just can't pinpoint us at any given time.
    • 2010, Brad Steiger, “Demons from the Darkside”, in Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside, Canton, Mich.: Visible Ink Press, →ISBN, page 67:
      We are relieved to put the book aside or leave the theater, knowing that the monsters that these tales portray are not real. They are only creatures born somewhere in the darkside of a writer's psyche.
    • 2011, Peter R. Farley, “As Above, So Below”, in Where Were You before the Tree of Life?: The True History of the Darkness and the Light, volume 7 (The Hunt for Lucifer), [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 41:
      Of course our teachers in this lifetime have all been mainly from the darkside so it has been easy to propagate these lies. If nothing else, the first six volumes of this work should show us all just how much we have been duped and that just about everything we think we know or believe is a lie.
    • 2018 September 19, Katie Rife, “Eli Roth, of All Directors, Brings Amblin Magic to the Kid-lit Horror of The House with a Clock in Its Walls”, in The A.V. Club‎[2], archived from the original on 26 April 2022:
      The film stumbles as its plot gets more complicated, introducing the house’s previous resident, evil warlock Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan), Jonathan’s former partner-in-magic who turned to the dark side after an encounter with a demon named Azazel (Christian Calloway) during World War II.
    • 1964, Harlan Ellison, “Lonelyache”, in Terry Dowling with Richard Delap and Gil Lamont, editors, The Essential Ellison: A 35-year Retrospective, Omaha, Neb.: The Nemo Press, published 1987, →ISBN, part II (Worlds of Terror), page 67:
      This was the dream, that same damned recurrent dream, never quite the same dream—but on the same subject, night after night, chapter after chapter of the same story: as if he had bought a book of horror stories; they would all be on one theme, but told differently; that was the way with this string of darkside visions.
    • 1984, Mauricio Mazón, “Servicemen and Zoot-Suiters”, in The Zoot-Suit Riots: The Psychology of Symbolic Annihilation, Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, published 2002, →ISBN, page 54:
      War inspired mob violence and pressure for suppressing dissent. The earliest and most encompassing example was the internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans in the first six months of 1942. The fact that the ACLU report omitted reference to this colossal event suggests that lesser transgressions were similarly repressed in a collective effort to avoid the darkside of the American psyche.
    • 1989, Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, Alexandria, Va.: American Art Therapy Association, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 111, column 2:
      Delving into the darkside of clients' lives has pulled me toward an exploration of the merging process which often develops within the therapeutic relationship.
    • 1989 July 14, Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally...‎[3], spoken by Harry Burns (Billy Crystal):
      When I buy a new book, I read the last page first. That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side.
    • 2021 September 15, Laura Martin, “How Talent Shows Became TV’s Most Bizarre Programmes”, in BBC Online‎[4], archived from the original on 7 December 2021:
      [P]revious finalists on the show have begun to speak out against issues they had to deal with when the cameras stopped filming. […] But just as the dark side of the genre threatened to overshadow any previous genuine highs, in 2019, buzz spread in the US around a talent show that had to be seen to be believed.
  3. (countable, astronomy)
    1. Synonym of farside (“the side of a moon that faces away from the planet that it orbits”)
      • 1971, Barry N[athaniel] Malzberg, chapter XX, in The Falling Astronauts, London: Hachette UK, published 2011, →ISBN:
        He did not give a damn; he had his own problems and considerations and, besides, the BUTTON and he would settle this once and for all on the fifth go-round and then he would press the BUTTON, on the darkside, let them sweat out this one and think they were getting through to him and the two of them would head back for Earth and a generation of peace and celebration.
      • 1977 January, Norman F[rederick] Ness, “The Magnetic Field of Mercury”, in Edith A[lice] Müller, editor, Highlights of Astronomy‎[5], volume 4, part I, Dordrecht, South Holland: D. Reidel for the International Astronomical Union, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 April 2022, page 180:
        Also shown at the bottom [of Figure 1] is the trajectory during the first encounter on 29 March 1974, which was a darkside pass with a closest approach distance from the surface of 723 km. […] The third encounter on 16 March 1975 was similar to the first, being a very close approach towards the darkside near the north polar region at a miss distance of 327 km.
      • 2002, Carl Rafala, “Soul Solution”, in Wildflower, Lincoln, Neb.: Writers Club Press, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 2:
        On the lighter side, Cassini should be coming out of darkside soon and run smack-dab into the distress siren.
    2. Synonym of nightside (“the side of a planet that faces away from the sun around which it orbits”)
      • 1950 fall, Charles L[eonard] Harness, “Heritage”, in Robert P[ark] Mills, editor, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, volume I, number 4, New York, N.Y.: Fantasy House, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 100:
        Terraport would be in darkside now, and her great lights would be fused into a single tiny eye winking mockery at him – if he chose to slide back his porthole screen.
      • 1963, Engineering Problems of Manned Interplanetary Exploration: A Volume of Technical Papers Presented Sept. 30 – Oct. 1, 1963, New York, N.Y.: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, →OCLC, page 78, column 2:
        The vehicle, in an equatorial orbit of 300 nautical miles, has a period of 2.1 hours establishing 0.7 hours of darkside operation and 1.4 hours of sunlight operation.
      • 1966 December, J[ohn] M[atthew] Saari, R[ichard] W. Shorthill, Review of Lunar Infrared Observations […] (Boeing Scientific Research Laboratories Document; D1-82-0586), Seattle, Wash.: Geo-astrophysics Laboratory, Boeing Scientific Research Laboratories, →OCLC, page 18:
        In the case of Copernicus [a lunar crater], during an eclipse three maxima in the brightness temperature were observed within the crater, whereas with the same resolution, only one maximum was seen 16 hours after sunset. Thus a careful comparison of darkside and eclipse infrared mapping may show differences which, in the case of the rock hypothesis, could be due to variations in the size distribution.
      • 1988 September, M[ary] J[ane] Engh, “[Preface to ‘The Second Turn’]”, in Wheel of the Winds, 1st mass market edition, New York, N.Y.: Tor Books, Tom Doherty Associates, published October 1989, →ISBN, pages 273–274:
        But that air was at its coldest—aphelion was the chilliest season everywhere on this chill and temperate world—and the mountains of that limb were lower. Currents of darkside air would begin to flow through the low passes into the relative warmth of the marsh country, and the ponderous wheel of air would roll again.
      • 1989 March, Nesim Halyo, Dhirendra K. Pandey, Deborah B. Taylor, Modeling and Characterization of the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) Nonscanner and Scanner Sensors (NASA Contractor Report; 181818), Hampton, Va.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, →OCLC:
        NOAA-lO is a terminator orbital satellite which leads WFOVSW channel to only a few days of darkside data in a whole year.
  4. (uncountable, music) A style of electronic music, being a form of hardcore characterized by discordant sounds.
    Synonym: darkcore
    • 1994, “Reinforced Records”, in Colin Larkin, editor, The Guinness Who’s Who of Rap, Dance & Techno, Enfield, Middlesex [London]: Guinness Publishing, →ISBN, page 304, column 1:
      The label closely observed the shifts in techno during the 90s, being a staple source of ‘darkside’ hardcore in 1992.
    • 2003 May 6, Alex Nikolaenko Jr., “What is a Jungle?”, in fido7.ru.music.drum-bass‎[6] (Usenet):
      1993 was the year that hardcore began to get more varied with different styles being made. One style known as "darkness" or "darkside" used less pianos and more darker sounding chords.
    • 2007 December, Mark Fisher, “Epiphanies”, in The Wire‎[7], number 286, London: The Wire Magazine, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 May 2021, page 106, columns 1–2:
      After some atonal washes and twitchy breakbeats, the track lurched to a sudden halt and – in a moment that still takes my breath away when I listen to it now – a brief snatch of the spidery, abstract electronics instantly recognisable from the Japan record leapt into the chasm, before being immediately consumed by viscous bass ooze and the synthetic screeches that were the sonic signatures of darkside Jungle.

Alternative forms[edit]

Translations[edit]

synonym of farside — see farside
synonym of nightside — see nightside

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ “dark side, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2021.

Further reading[edit]

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