GLOOM • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Gloom

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noun

Gloom n.

1.

Partial or total darkness; thick shade; obscurity; as, the gloom of a forest, or of midnight.

2.

A shady, gloomy, or dark place or grove. "Before a gloom of stubborn-shafted oaks."

3.

Cloudiness or heaviness of mind; melancholy; aspect of sorrow; low spirits; dullness. "A sullen gloom and furious disorder prevailed by fits."

4.

In gunpowder manufacture, the drying oven.

Synonyms: Darkness; dimness; obscurity; heaviness; dullness; depression; melancholy; dejection; sadness. See Darkness.

verb

Gloom v. t.

1.

To render gloomy or dark; to obscure; to darken. "A bow window... gloomed with limes." "A black yew gloomed the stagnant air."

2.

To fill with gloom; to make sad, dismal, or sullen. "Such a mood as that which lately gloomed Your fancy." "What sorrows gloomed that parting day."

Gloom v. i. (past & past part. gloomed; pres. part. glooming)

1.

To shine or appear obscurely or imperfectly; to glimmer.

2.

To become dark or dim; to be or appear dismal, gloomy, or sad; to come to the evening twilight. "The black gibbet glooms beside the way." "(This weary day)... at last I see it gloom."

See images of 'Gloom'

Etymology of 'Gloom'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Gloom" Quotes from Famous Books

... out her candle, drew back her curtains, and looked out into the gathering darkness. An air of gloom and loneliness reigned over everything. Far out she could see white caps on the waves, but not a boat, or vessel of any kind. The ...

— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... were cheerful—everything came in the day's work for them—but among the seniors on either side gloom prevailed. Even Ranger, the lighthearted, was snappish, as his fag discovered; and Denton, the amiable, hoped he would not, for his temper's sake, meet too many Moderns between morning and evening. The captain, though he kept up his usual ...

— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... sleep for any of them. Lights burned dimly in the few rough log homes. The company's store was aglow, and the factor's office, a haven for the men of the wilderness, shot one gleaming yellow eye out into the white gloom. The post was awake. It was waiting. It was listening. It ...

— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood

... a sudden thunderstorm boiled up out of the sea: the sky became a vast brazen bowl, and a strange, coppery twilight bleached the lilies in the white garden to a supernatural pallor. The room, with its embroidered Moorish hangings, darkened to a rich gloom; but Mohammed touched a button on the wall, and all the quaint old Arab lamps that stood in corners, or hung suspended from the cedar roof, flashed out cunningly concealed electric lights. At the same moment, there began a great howling outside the door. Mohammed sprang to open ...

— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... were so poor that Robert was obliged to work hard even when very young, and at fifteen he was his father's chief helper. In later years he described his life at Mt. Oliphant as combining "the cheerless gloom of a hermit with the unceasing moil of a galley slave." But poets are given to exaggeration, and doubtless the attractive picture of home life which he afterwards painted in the Cotter's Saturday Night is true in the main of the life in ...

— Selections from Five English Poets • Various

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