Dreary \Drear"y\ (dr[=e]r"[y^]), a. [Compar. Drearier; superl.
Dreariest.] [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dre['o]rig, sad; akin
to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dre['o]san to fall, Goth.
driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.]
1. Sorrowful; distressful. [Obs.] " Dreary shrieks."
--Spenser.
[1913 Webster]
2. Exciting cheerless sensations, feelings, or associations;
comfortless; dismal; gloomy. " Dreary shades." --Dryden.
"The dreary ground." --Prior.
[1913 Webster]
Full many a dreary anxious hour. --Keble.
[1913 Webster]
Johnson entered on his vocation in the most dreary
part of that dreary interval which separated two
ages of prosperity. --Macaulay.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
dreary
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, dismal,
drab, drear, gloomy, sorry]
2: lacking in liveliness or charm or surprise; "her drab
personality"; "life was drab compared with the more
exciting life style overseas"; "a series of dreary dinner
parties" [syn: drab]
[also: dreariest, drearier]
WordNet (r) 2.0
228 Moby Thesaurus words for "dreary":
Quaker-colored, acier, affecting, afflictive, apocalyptic, arid,
ashen, ashy, bad, baleful, banausic, baneful, barren, bitter,
black, blah, blank, bleak, bloodless, blue, bodeful, boding,
boring, broken-record, canescent, characterless, cheerless,
cinereous, cinerous, cold, colorless, comfortless, dapple,
dapple-gray, dappled, dappled-gray, dark, dead, deplorable,
depressed, depressing, depressive, dim, dingy, dire, discomforting,
dismal, dismaying, dispiriting, distressful, distressing, doleful,
dolorific, dolorogenic, dolorous, doomful, dove-colored, dove-gray,
downcast, drab, draggy, drear, drearisome, dry, dryasdust, dull,
dusty, effete, elephantine, empty, etiolated, everlasting, evil,
evil-starred, fade, fateful, flat, foreboding, forlorn, funebrial,
funereal, glaucescent, glaucous, gloomy, glum, 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, harping, heavy, ho-hum,
hollow, humdrum, ill, ill-boding, ill-fated, ill-omened,
ill-starred, inane, inauspicious, inexcitable, insipid, invariable,
iron-gray, jejune, jog-trot, joyless, lamentable, lead-gray,
leaden, lifeless, livid, long-winded, low-spirited, lowering,
melancholy, menacing, miserable, monotone, monotonous, morose,
mournful, mouse-colored, mouse-gray, mousy, moving,
of evil portent, ominous, oppressive, ordinary, painful, pale,
pallid, pathetic, pearl, pearl-gray, pearly, pedestrian, piteous,
pitiable, plodding, poignant, pointless, poky, ponderous,
portending, portentous, prolix, prosaic, regrettable, rueful,
run-of-the-mill, sad, saddening, saturnine, sharp, silver,
silver-gray, silvered, silvery, singsong, sinister, 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, threatening, tiresome, tiring, touching, treadmill,
triste, uncomfortable, uneventful, unexciting, unfavorable,
unfortunate, unhappy, uninteresting, unlively, unlucky,
unpromising, unpropitious, untoward, unvarying, vapid, weariful,
wearisome, weary, wearying, woebegone, woeful, wooden, wretched
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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