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dismal |
2 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Dismal \Dis"mal\, a. [Formerly a noun e. g., ``I trow it was in the dismalle.'' Chaucer. Of uncertain origin; but perh. (as suggested by Skeat) from OF disme, F. d[^i]me, tithe, the phrase dismal day properly meaning, the day when tithes must be paid. See {Dime}.] 1. Fatal; ill-omened; unlucky. [Obs.] An ugly fiend more foul than dismal day --Spenser. 2. Gloomy to the eye or ear; sorrowful and depressing to the feelings; foreboding; cheerless; dull; dreary; as a dismal outlook; dismal stories; a dismal place Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frowned. --Goldsmith. A dismal description of an English November. --Southey. Syn: Dreary; lonesome; gloomy; dark; ominous; ill-boding; fatal; doleful; lugubrious; funereal; dolorous; calamitous; sorrowful; sad; joyless; melancholy; unfortunate; unhappy. From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: dismal adj 1: depressing in character or appearance; "drove through dingy streets"; "the dismal prison twilight"- Charles Dickens; "drab old buildings"; "a dreary mining town"; "gloomy tenements"; "sorry routine that follows on the heels of death"- B.A.Williams [syn: {dingy}, {drab}, {drear}, {dreary}, {gloomy}, {sorry}] 2: causing dejection; "a blue day"; "the dark days of the war"; "a week of rainy depressing weather"; "a disconsolate winter landscape"; "the first dismal dispiriting days of November"; "a dark gloomy day"; "grim rainy weather" [syn: {blue}, {dark}, {depressing}, {disconsolate}, {dispiriting}, {gloomy}, {grim}]
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