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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Dismal \Dis"mal\, adjective [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.]
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.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
dismal
adjective
1: depressing in character or appearance; "drove through dingy streets"; "the dismal prison twilight"- Charles Dickens; "drab old buildings"; "a dreary mining town"; "gloomy tenements"; "sorry routine that follows on the heels of death"- B.A.Williams [syn: {dingy}, {drab}, {drear}, {dreary}, {gloomy}, {sorry}]
2: 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}, {depressing}, {disconsolate}, {dispiriting}, {gloomy}, {grim}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
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
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