In the 18th century, the Swedish government made coffee and its paraphernalia (including cups and dishes) illegal for its supposed ties to rebellious sentiment.
DISMAL
blue, dark, dingy, disconsolate, dismal, gloomy, grim, sorry, drab, drear, dreary
(adjective) 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”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Adjective
dismal (comparative more dismal, superlative most dismal)
Disappointingly inadequate.
Gloomy and bleak.
Depressing.
Usage notes
• Nouns to which "dismal" is often applied: failure, performance, state, record, place, result, scene, season, year, economy, future, fate, weather, news, condition, history.
Synonyms
• See also cheerless
Anagrams
• almids
Source: Wiktionary
Dis"mal, a. Etym: [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.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
23 November 2024
THEORETICAL
(adjective) concerned primarily with theories or hypotheses rather than practical considerations; “theoretical science”
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