Dictionary Definition
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]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Etymology
From the Latin dies, day, and mali, bad ("bad day").Pronunciation
- /ˈdɪzm(ə)l/
Adjective
- disappointingly inadequate
- He received a dismal compensation
- gloomy and bleak
- The storm made for a dismal weekend
- depressing
- She was lost in dismal thoughts of despair
- blue
- Dismal are the eyes of the wolf.
Translations
disappointingly inadequate
Portuguese: inadequado
gloomy and bleak
- Finnish: synkkä, surullinen
depressing
- Finnish: surullinen
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
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