[L. = twilight, a diminutive formation, related to creper dusky, dark, creperum darkness.] Twilight, dusk.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., IX. xxiv. 36. The euentyde highte Crepusculum … whanne it is nat certaynly knowe bytwene lyght and derknesse.
1430. Lydg., Chron. Troy, III. xxiii. The same time … That clerkes call Crepusculum at eue.
1638. Wilkins, New World, I. (1684), 176. By Observing the height of that Air which causeth the Crepusculum, or Twilight.
1840. De Quincey, Rhet., Wks. X. 34. Which interval we regard as the common crepusculum between ancient and modern history.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxxv. (1856), 313. The twilight too, that long Arctic crepusculum, seemed … disproportionally increased in its duration.
