The kanji 暗 primarily means "dark," "shadow," or "obscure." It suggests a lack of light or the absence of visibility. This can refer to physical darkness, but also metaphorically to things that are hidden, secret, or not well-known.

・On-yomi (音読み): アン (an) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): くら（い） (kurai) - dark

⚫︎ 暗い部屋 Translation: A dark room ⚫︎ 暗闇 Translation: Darkness ⚫︎ 暗殺 Translation: Assassination (literally "dark killing")

The kanji 暗 is a phono-semantic compound (形声文字, けいせいもじ). The left side is the radical 日 (ひ, hi), meaning "sun" or "day," indicating the context of light. The right side is 音 (おん, on), meaning "sound" or "noise" (and also used phonetically). The combination initially suggested the "sound of darkness." The association of "sound" may come from the observation of what you can hear in the dark, and therefore, it came to mean "dark" or "obscure". Over time, it developed the meaning of darkness and obscurity.