the dismals pl (plural only)
A dismal or melancholy state.
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
25 June 2025
(noun) a state of being confined (usually for a short time); “his detention was politically motivated”; “the prisoner is on hold”; “he is in the custody of police”
The earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking as the modern beverage appeared in modern-day Yemen. In the middle of the 15th century in Sufi shrines where coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed for drinking. The Yemenis procured the coffee beans from the Ethiopian Highlands.
