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]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
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]
WordNet (r) 2.0
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
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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