Search Result for "dismal": 
Wordnet 3.0

ADJECTIVE (1)

1. causing dejection;
- Example: "a blue day"
- Example: "the dark days of the war"
- Example: "a week of rainy depressing weather"
- Example: "a disconsolate winter landscape"
- Example: "the first dismal dispiriting days of November"
- Example: "a dark gloomy day"
- Example: "grim rainy weather"
[syn: blue, dark, dingy, disconsolate, dismal, gloomy, grim, sorry, drab, drear, dreary]



The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

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]


WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

dismal
    adj 1: 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, dingy,
           disconsolate, dismal, gloomy, grim, sorry,
           drab, drear, dreary]