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Fatal; ill-omened; unlucky. [Obs.] An ugly fiend more foul than dismal day. Spenser.

In a dismal manner; gloomily; sorrowfully; uncomfortably.

The quality of being dismal; gloominess.

Of or pertaining to Acheron; infernal; hence, dismal, gloomy; moribund.

Fig.: Dismal, gloomy, or forbidding, like darkness; destitute of moral light or goodness; atrociously wicked; cruel; mournful; calamitous; horrible. "This day's black fate." "Black villainy." "Arise, black vengeance." "Black day." "Black despair." Shak.

Having black eyebrows. Hence: Gloomy; dismal; threatening; forbidding. Shak. Dryden.

A circle; a circus; a circular erection or arrangement of objects. A dismal cirque Of Druid stones upon a forlorn moor. Keats.

ow, hoarse noise in the throat, as a frog, a raven, or a crow; hence, to make any hoarse, dismal sound. Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog, And the hoarse nation croaked. Pope.

Evil in great degree; dreadful; dismal; horrible; terrible; lamentable. Dire was the tossing, deep the groans. Milton. Gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire. Milton.

To render unacquainted; to make unfamiliar. [Obs.] While my sick heart With dismal smart Is disacquainted never. Herrick.

Full of dole or grief; expressing or exciting sorrow; sorrowful; sad; dismal. With screwed face and doleful whine. South. Regions of sorrow, doleful shades. Milton.

Doleful; dismal; gloomy; sorrowful. -- Dole"some*ly, adv. -- Dole"some*ness, n.

Full of grief; sad; sorrowful; doleful; dismal; as, a dolorous object; dolorous discourses. You take me in too dolorous a sense; I spake to you for your comfort. Shak.

Dismal; gloomy with solitude. "A drear and dying sound." Milton.

Gloomily; dismally.

Dismalness; gloomy solitude.

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.…

Suiting a funeral; pertaining to burial; solemn. Hence: Dark; dismal; mournful. Jer. Taylor. What seem to us but sad funereal tapers May be heaven's distant lamps. Longfellow. -- Fu*ne"re*al*ly, adv.

Fit to make one aghast; dismal. [Obs.] -- Ghast"ful*ly, adv.

Like a ghost in appearance; deathlike; pale; pallid; dismal. Each turned his face with a ghastly pang. Coleridge. His face was so ghastly that it could scarcely be recognized. Macaulay.