DISMAL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Dismal

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/dˈɪzməl/ Listen

adjective

Dismal adj.

Fatal; ill-omened; unlucky. (Obs.) "An ugly fiend more foul than dismal day."

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." "A dismal description of an English November."

Synonyms: Dreary; lonesome; gloomy; dark; ominous; ill-boding; fatal; doleful; lugubrious; funereal; dolorous; calamitous; sorrowful; sad; joyless; melancholy; unfortunate; unhappy.

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Etymology of 'Dismal'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Dismal" Quotes from Famous Books

... who expected a dark, dismal cavern, was surprised to see a well-lighted and spacious chamber, which received the light from an opening at the top of the rock, and in which were all sorts of provisions, rich bales of silk, stuff, brocade, and valuable carpeting, ...

— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... remarkable, that, while we stood gazing at this kitchen, I was haunted and perplexed by an idea that somewhere or other I had seen just this strange spectacle before.—The height, the blackness, the dismal void, before my eyes, seemed as familiar as the decorous neatness of my grandmother's kitchen; only my unaccountable memory of the scene was lighted up with an image of lurid fires blazing all round ...

— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... grey light of that wintry afternoon the place looked inexpressibly dismal and neglected. Years ago it had, no doubt, been the residence of some well-to-do county family; but in these twentieth-century post-war days, having been empty for nearly ten years, it had gone ...

— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux

... one of which, moreover, wore such an unaccustomed shape, dashing rapidly along through the black foam-flecked water, with ice in every conceivable form heaped and piled around them, and their bright-hued flags fluttering against the dark and dismal background of a stormy sky; and the skipper of the whaler possesses to this day a spirited water-colour sketch of the scene, executed on the spot by the colonel, which he exhibits with becoming pride whenever he relates the story of his wonderful ...

— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... nation. A little boy in Holland saw water trickling from a small hole near the bottom of a dike. He realized that the leak would rapidly become larger if the water was not checked, so he held his hand over the hole for hours on a dark and dismal night until he could attract the attention of passers-by. His name is still held ...

— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

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