Dismal means gloomy and depressingly bad. A dismal room, a dismal afternoon, dismal results.
It describes weather, places and performance with equal ease, and it always carries a drop in spirits along with the judgement — dismal is bad in a way that makes you sigh. Economics is called the dismal science, a nickname over a century old that has never quite been shaken off. The word began as dismal days, a list of unlucky dates in a medieval calendar, which is a fittingly gloomy origin for it.
1adjectivedismalGloomy, dreary and depressing.
“It was a dismal wet week.”
2adjectivepoorVery poor in quality or result.
“The team had a dismal season.”
Also accepted in games: bleak
Medieval Latin
diēs malī — bad days
Old French
(li) dis mals — (the) bad days
Anglo-Norman
dismal
Middle English
dismal
English, today
dismal
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”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Sharper Adjectives, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 19 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word