The expression “coffee break” was first attested in 1952 in glossy magazine advertisements by the Pan-American Coffee Bureau.
DREARY
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”
drab, dreary
(adjective) lacking in liveliness or charm or surprise; “her drab personality”; “life was drab compared with the more exciting life style overseas”; “a series of dreary dinner parties”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Adjective
dreary (comparative drearier or more dreary, superlative dreariest or most dreary)
Drab; dark, colorless, or cheerless.
(obsolete) Grievous, dire; appalling.
Anagrams
• Ardrey, Drayer, yarder, yarred
Source: Wiktionary
Drear"y, a. [Compar. Drearier; superl. Dreariest.] Etym: [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dreĂłrig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dreĂłsan to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.]
1. Sorrowful; distressful. [Obs.] " Dreary shrieks." Spenser.
2. Exciting cheerless sensations, feelings, or associations; comfortless; dismal; gloomy. " Dreary shades." Dryden. "The dreary ground." Prior. Full many a dreary anxious hour. Keble. Johnson entered on his vocation in the most dreary part of that dreary interval which separated two ages of prosperity. Macaulay.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
6 May 2025
HEEDLESS
(adjective) marked by or paying little heed or attention; “We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics”--Franklin D. Roosevelt; “heedless of danger”; “heedless of the child’s crying”
Coffee Trivia