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The quality or state of being somber; gloominess.

Gloomy; somber. "Tall and sombrous pines." Longfellow. -- Som"brous*ly, adv. -- Som"brous*ness, n.

Melancholy; dismal; gloomy; mournful. Spenser. All full of chirking was this sorry place. Chaucer.

The full blooming of a flower. [Obs.] Rom. of R.

; also, the pin on which the bobbin is held in a spinning machine, or in the shuttle of a loom.

One employed to inspect yarn, to see that it is well spun, and fit for the loom. [Prov. Eng.]

Not active or brisk; dull; as, business in stagnant. That gloomy slumber of the stagnant soul. Johnson. For him a stagnant life was not worth living. Palfrey.

To descend, as an estate or an heirloom, in the same family; to devolve. Shak.

Gloomy; dismal; foreboding. Milton. Solemn hymns so sullen dirges change. Shak.

or warmed by the direct rays of the sun; as, a sunny room; the sunny side of a hill. Her blooming mountains and her sunny shores. Addison.

Gloomily morose; ill-natured, abrupt, and rude; severe; sour; crabbed; rough; sullen; gloomy; as, a surly groom; a surly dog; surly language; a surly look. "That surly spirit, melancholy." Shak.

Gloomy; malignant. [Obs.] Milton. Swart star, the Dog Star; -- so called from its appearing during the hot weather of summer, which makes swart the countenance. [R.] Milton.

One of the end bars by which the lay of a hand loom is suspended. Sword arm, the right arm. -- Sword bayonet, a bayonet shaped somewhat like a sword, and which can be used as a sword. -- Sword bearer, one who carries his master's sword; an officer in London who carries a sword before the lord mayor when he goes abroa…

eaweed, especially the Laminaria saccharina. See Kelp. Coral and sea fan and tangle, the blooms and the palms of the ocean. C. Kingsley.

a definite amount of business, labor, or duty to. There task thy maids, and exercise the loom. Dryden.

schoolmaster. [Written also tawes, tawis, and tawse.] [Scot.] Never use the taws when a gloom can do the turn. Ramsay.

A contrivence used in a loom for keeping the web stretched transversely.

Tenebrous; dark; gloomy. [Obs.]

Rendering dark or gloomy; tenebrous; gloomy. It lightens, it brightens, The tenebrific scene. Burns. Where light Lay fitful in a tenebrific time. R. Browning.

Characterized by darkness or gloom; tenebrous.