Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Dismal

Dis′mal (dĭz′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. dîme, tithe, the phrase dismal day properly meaning, the day when tithes must be paid. See Dime.] 1. Fatal; ill-omened; unlucky. [Obs.]

An ugly fiend more foul than dismal day. Spenser.

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.

Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frowned. Goldsmith.

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.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.