dismal.
Disastrous, calamitous.
Meaning & usage
Disastrous, calamitous.
Disappointingly inadequate.
He received a dismal compensation.
Causing despair; gloomy and bleak.
The storm made for a dismal weekend
Depressing, dreary, cheerless.
She was lost in dismal thoughts of despair
Where this word comes from
From Middle English dismal, dismale, from Anglo-Norman dismal, from Old French (li) dis mals (“(the) bad days”), from Medieval Latin diēs malī (“bad days”).
A dreary swamp in eastern North Carolina or Virginia in the United States.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English dismal, dismale, from Anglo-Norman dismal, from Old French (li) dis mals (“(the) bad days”), from Medieval Latin diēs malī (“bad days”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.