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Quality of being sad, or unhappy; gloominess; sorrowfulness; dejection. Dim sadness did not spare That time celestial visages. Milton.

Heavy; grave; gloomy; dull; -- the opposite of mercurial; as, a saturnine person or temper. Addison.

A person of a dull, grave, gloomy temperament. W. browne.

Hence, to look gloomy, dark, or threatening; to lower. "The scowling heavens." Thomson.

her men's protection break in Without invitement. Massinger. Shadow of death, darkness or gloom like that caused by the presence or the impending of death. Ps. xxiii. 4.

Hence, dark; obscure; gloomy; dim. "The shadowy past." Longfellow.

ed; without signs of inhabitants or occupation; desolate; deserted; silent; still; hence, gloomy; dismal; as, the solitary desert. How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people. Lam. i. 1. Let that night be solitary; let no joyful voice come therein. Job iii. 7.

Dull; dusky; somewhat dark; gloomy; as, a somber forest; a somber house.

In a somber manner; sombrously; gloomily; despondingly.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.