different between glum vs dismal

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?l?m/
• Rhymes: -?m

Etymology 1

Probably from Middle Low German glum (“glum”), related to German dialectal glumm (“gloomy, troubled, turbid”). More at gloomy.

Adjective

glum (comparative glummer, superlative glummest)

1. despondent; moody; sullen
   • 1857-1859, William Makepeace Thackeray, The Virginians

     I […] frighten people by my glum face.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English glomen, glommen, glomben, gloumben (“to frown, look sullen”), from *glom (“gloom”). More at gloom.

Verb

glum (third-person singular simple present glums, present participle glumming, simple past and past participle glummed)

1. (obsolete) To look sullen; to be of a sour countenance; to be glum.
   • 1509, Stephen Hawes, The Passetyme of Pleasure

     upon me he gan to loure and glum,
     Enforcing him so for to ryse withall,
     But that I shortly unto hem did cum,
     With his thre hedes he spytte all his venum

Noun

glum (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) sullenness
   • c. 1550, John Skelton, Colyn Cloute

     That they be deaf and dumb,
     And play silence and glum

English

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman dismal, from Old French (li) dis mals ("(the) bad days"), from Medieval Latin di?s (“day”) m?l? (“bad”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?d?zm?l/
• Rhymes: -?zm?l

Adjective

dismal (comparative more dismal, superlative most dismal)

1. Disastrous, calamitous
2. Disappointingly inadequate.
3. Causing despair; gloomy and bleak.

4. Depressing, dreary, cheerless.

Usage notes

• Nouns to which "dismal" is often applied: failure, performance, state, record, place, result, scene, season, year, economy, future, fate, weather, news, condition, history.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:cheerless

Derived terms

• dismal science

Translations

Anagrams

• almids