word: gloaming

All actresses have favourite words, and 'gloaming' was one of Laurel's. It was a pleasure to articulate, the sense of falling gloom and helpless encompassment inherent within the word's sound, and yet it was so close to 'glowing' that some of the latter's shine rubbed off on it.
(The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton, 66)

gloaming, n.
Twilight; dusk.

The word's etymology is particularly interesting given the above quote's reference to gloaming's closeness to glowing.

From Middle English gloming, from Old English glomung, from glom (dusk). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ghel- (to shine), which is also the source of words such as yellow, gold, glimmer, glimpse, glass, arsenic, melancholy, and cholera. (Wordsmith)