dismal : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: dismal	by the DICT Development Group
2 results for dismal
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
dismal adj 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" Synonym(s): blue, dark, dingy, disconsolate, dismal, gloomy, grim, sorry, drab, drear, dreary
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Dismal \Dis"mal\, a. [Formerly a noun; e. g., [bd]I trow it was in the dismalle.[b8] Chaucer. Of uncertain origin; but perh. (as suggested by Skeat) from OF. disme, F. d[8c]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.