dismal

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: dis=mal

OXFORD DICTIONARY

dismal, adj.
1 causing or showing gloom; miserable.
2 dreary or sombre (dismal brown walls).
3 colloq. feeble or inept (a dismal performance).

Idiom

the dismals colloq. melancholy. the dismal science joc. economics.

Derivative

dismally adv. dismalness n.

Etymology

orig. noun = unlucky days: ME f. AF dis mal f. med.L dies mali two days in each month held to be unpropitious

THESAURUS

dismal

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

ROGET THESAURUS

dismal

Painfulness

N painfulness, trouble, care, trial, affliction, infliction, blow, stroke, burden, load, curse, bitter pill, bitter draught, waters of bitterness, annoyance, grievance, nuisance, vexation, mortification, sickener, bore, bother, pother, hot water, sea of troubles, hornet's nest, plague, pest, cancer, ulcer, sting, thorn, canker, scorpion, dagger, scourge, carking care, canker worm of care, mishap, misfortune, desagrement, esclandre, rub, source of irritation, source of annoyance, wound, open sore, sore subject, skeleton in the closet, thorn in the flesh, thorn in one's side, where the shoe pinches, gall and wormwood, sorry sight, heavy news, provocation, affront, head and front of one's offending, infestation, molestation, malignity, causing pain, hurting, hurtful, painful, dolorific, dolorous, unpleasant, unpleasing, displeasing, disagreeable, unpalatable, bitter, distasteful, uninviting, unwelcome, undesirable, undesired, obnoxious, unacceptable, unpopular, thankless, unsatisfactory, untoward, unlucky, uncomfortable, distressing, afflicting, afflictive, joyless, cheerless, comfortless, dismal, disheartening, depressing, depressive, dreary, melancholy, grievous, piteous, woeful, rueful, mournful, deplorable, pitiable, lamentable, sad, affecting, touching, pathetic, irritating, provoking, stinging, annoying, aggravating, mortifying, galling, unaccommodating, invidious, vexatious, troublesome, tiresome, irksome, wearisome, plaguing, plaguy, awkward, importunate, teasing, pestering, bothering, harassing, worrying, tormenting, carking, intolerable, insufferable, insupportable, unbearable, unendurable, past bearing, not to be borne, not to be endured, more than flesh and blood can bear, enough to drive one mad, enough to provoke a saint, enough to make a parson swear, enough to gag a maggot, shocking, terrific, grim, appalling, crushing, dreadful, fearful, frightful, thrilling, tremendous, dire, heart-breaking, heart-rending, heart-wounding, heart-corroding, heart-sickening, harrowing, rending, odious, hateful, execrable, repulsive, repellent, abhorrent, horrid, horrible, horrific, horrifying, offensive, nauseous, nauseating, disgusting, sickening, revolting, nasty, loathsome, loathful, fulsome, vile, hideous, sharp, acute, sore, severe, grave, hard, harsh, cruel, biting, caustic, cutting, corroding, consuming, racking, excruciating, searching, grinding, grating, agonizing, envenomed, catheretic, pyrotic, ruinous, disastrous, calamitous, tragical, desolating, withering, burdensome, onerous, oppressive, cumbrous, cumbersome, painfully, with pain, deuced, Int, hinc illae lachrymae!, surgit amari aliquid, the place being too hot to hold one, the iron entering into the soul, he jests at scars that never felt a wound, I must be cruel only to be kind, what deep wounds ever closed without a scar?.

Dejection

N dejection, dejectedness, depression, prosternation, lowness of spirits, depression of spirits, weight on the spirits, oppression on the spirits, damp on the spirits, low spirits, bad spirits, drooping spirits, depressed spirits, heart sinking, heaviness of heart, failure of heart, heaviness, infestivity, gloom, weariness, taedium vitae, disgust of life, mal du pays, anhedonia, melancholy, sadness, il penseroso, melancholia, dismals, blues, lachrymals, mumps, dumps, blue devils, doldrums, vapors, megrims, spleen, horrors, hypochondriasis, pessimism, la maladie sans maladie, despondency, slough of Despond, disconsolateness, hope deferred, blank despondency, voiceless woe, prostration of soul, broken heart, despair, cave of despair, cave of Trophonius demureness, gravity, solemnity, long face, grave face, hypochondriac, seek sorrow, self-tormentor, heautontimorumenos, malade imaginaire, medecin tant pis, croaker, pessimist, mope, mopus, affliction, sorry sight, memento mori, damper, wet blanket, Job's comforter, cheerless, joyless, spiritless, uncheerful, uncheery, unlively, unhappy, melancholy, dismal, somber, dark, gloomy, triste, clouded, murky, lowering, frowning, lugubrious, funereal, mournful, lamentable, dreadful, dreary, flat, dull, dull as a beetle, dull as ditchwater, depressing, melancholy as a gib cat, oppressed with melancholy, a prey to melancholy, downcast, downhearted, down in the mouth, down in one's luck, heavy-hearted, in the dumps, down in the dumps, in the suds, in the sulks, in the doldrums, in doleful dumps, in bad humor, sullen, mumpish, dumpish, mopish, moping, moody, glum, sulky, out of sorts, out of humor, out of heart, out of spirits, ill at ease, low spirited, in low spirits, a cup too low, weary, discouraged, disheartened, desponding, chapfallen, chopfallen, jaw fallen, crest fallen, sad, pensive, penseroso, tristful, dolesome, doleful, woebegone, lacrymose, lachrymose, in tears, melancholic, hypped, hypochondriacal, bilious, jaundiced, atrabilious, saturnine, splenetic, lackadaisical, serious, sedate, staid, stayed, grave as a judge, grave as an undertaker, grave as a mustard pot, sober, sober as a judge, solemn, demure, grim, grim-faced, grim-visaged, rueful, wan, long-faced, disconsolate, unconsolable, inconsolable, forlorn, comfortless, desolate, desole, sick at heart, soul sick, heart sick, au desespoir, in despair, lost, overcome, broken down, borne down, bowed down, heartstricken, cut up, dashed, sunk, unnerved, unmanned, down fallen, downtrodden, broken-hearted, careworn, with a long face, with tears in one's eyes, sadly, the countenance falling, the heart failing, the heart sinking within one, a plague of sighing and grief, thick-ey'd musing and curs'd melancholy, the sickening pang of hope deferred.