dismal

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}]
    

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]
    

205 Moby Thesaurus words for "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