dark days
Period of hardship
Dark days are times of hardship, trouble, or despair.
The phrase draws on darkness as a metaphor for difficulty or suffering: The company survived the dark days of the recession, She stood by him through the dark days of his illness.
Dark days may also refer literally to winter months when daylight is scarce.
- gloomyDark and dispiriting
- bleakDreary and without cheer
- hard timesPeriod of difficulty
- shadowLight blocked by object
- despairTotal absence of hope
tough times · winter · long winter · storm · black cloud · grief · heavy heart · hardship · difficult · tough · struggle · rock bottom · dreary · somber · troubled · gloom · depression · clouds
- hardshipshardship, adversity, struggle, misfortune, difficulties
- low pointsnadir, rock bottom, low point, bottom, depths
- ordealsordeal, trial by ordeal, ordeal by fire, ordeal by water, tribulation
dark daysgolden age
Period of peak prosperity
golden era · glory days · halcyon days · heyday · golden years
dark daysbright future
Anticipated success and happiness
better days · sunny days · new beginning · turning point · light at the end of the tunnel
dark, days, day, darken, darkened, darkening, darker, darkest, darkly