Hypertext Webster Gateway: "dismal"
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) 1.7 (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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