Dismal

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  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.]


        [1913 Webster]
  
              An ugly fiend more foul than dismal day. --Spenser.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
              Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frowned.
                                                    --Goldsmith.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              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.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [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}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  205 Moby Thesaurus words for "dismal":
     Cassandra-like, Cassandran, Cassandrian, Quaker-colored, acier,
     affecting, afflictive, affording no hope, apathetic, arid, ashen,
     ashy, barren, bitter, black, blah, blank, bleak, bloodless, blue,
     canescent, characterless, cheerless, cinerary, cinereous, cinerous,
     cold, colorless, comfortless, cynical, dapple, dapple-gray,
     dappled, dappled-gray, dark, dead, defeatist, deplorable,
     depressing, depressive, despairing, desperate, despondent, dingy,
     dirgelike, discomforting, disconsolate, disheartening, dismaying,
     distressful, distressing, doleful, dolorific, dolorogenic,
     dolorous, dove-colored, dove-gray, downbeat, draggy, drear,
     drearisome, dreary, dry, dryasdust, dull, dusty, effete,
     elephantine, empty, epitaphic, etiolated, exequial, fade, feral,
     flat, forlorn, funebrial, funebrious, funebrous, funeral, funerary,
     funereal, glaucescent, glaucous, gloomy, grave, gray, gray-black,
     gray-brown, gray-colored, gray-drab, gray-green, gray-spotted,
     gray-toned, gray-white, grayed, grayish, grievous, grim, griseous,
     grizzle, grizzled, grizzly, heavy, ho-hum, hollow, hopeless,
     in despair, inane, inexcitable, insipid, iron-gray, jejune,
     joyless, lamentable, lead-gray, leaden, lifeless, livid,
     low-spirited, lowering, lugubrious, melancholy, miserable, morose,
     mortuary, mournful, mouse-colored, mouse-gray, mousy, moving,
     necrological, negative, negativistic, nihilistic, obituary,
     obsequial, oppressive, painful, pale, pallid, pathetic, pearl,
     pearl-gray, pearly, pedestrian, pessimist, pessimistic, piteous,
     pitiable, plodding, poignant, pointless, poky, ponderous,
     regrettable, rueful, sad, saddening, saturnine, sepulchral, sharp,
     silver, silver-gray, silvered, silvery, slate-colored, slaty, slow,
     smoke-gray, smoky, sober, solemn, somber, sombrous, sore,
     sorrowful, spiritless, steel-gray, steely, sterile, stiff, stodgy,
     stone-colored, stuffy, superficial, tasteless, taupe, tedious,
     touching, triste, uncheerful, uncomfortable, unhappy, unhopeful,
     unlively, vapid, weariful, wearisome, weary, without hope,
     woebegone, woeful, wooden, wretched