From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishthe darkthe darkDARKwhen there is no light, especially because the sun has gone down my childish fear of the darkin the dark I turned off the light and lay there in the dark. We stood outside in the pitch dark (=when there is no light at all).► see thesaurus at colour → dark
Examples from the Corpus
the dark• Why are you sitting there in the dark? Put the light on.• Children who are afraid of the dark need to be reassured.• Children are sometimes afraid of the dark. 