From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
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]
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
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}]
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