DISMAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does dismal mean? 

• DISMAL (adjective)
  The adjective DISMAL has 1 sense:

1. causing dejection

  Familiarity information: DISMAL used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DISMAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Causing dejection

Synonyms:

blue; dark; dingy; disconsolate; dismal; drab; drear; dreary; gloomy; grim; sorry

Context example:

grim rainy weather

Similar:

cheerless; depressing; uncheerful (causing sad feelings of gloom and inadequacy)

 Context examples 

His answer was not cheering to my spirits, for it consisted of two dismal words, “With whopping.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Prognosis is dismal in cases where a complete occlusion occurs with rapid deterioration of neurological function.

(Basilar Artery Syndrome, NCI Thesaurus)

In instances where there is < 1% expression of CD18, prognosis is dismal with a high likelihood for life-threatening infection within the first year of life.

(Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency Type 1, NCI Thesaurus)

Prognosis is dismal with survivability usually less than one year.

(Alkylating Agent-Related Myelodysplastic Syndrome, NCI Thesaurus)

The dismal noise came from upstairs.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There were fewer houses and fewer fruit trees, and the farther they went the more dismal and lonesome the country became.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

Well, now, don't be dismal, there's a good fellow.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

We held a council round our dismal breakfast-table, to which Mr. Berkeley Craven was invited as a man of sound wisdom and large experience in matters of sport.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I declare, when I got back to Sotherton yesterday, it looked like a prison—quite a dismal old prison.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

A dismal screech, as of mere animal terror, rang from the cabinet.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)