DREARY - 10 definitions found
dreary adj 1: lacking in liveliness or charm or surprise; "her drab personality"; "life was drab compared with the more exciting life style overseas"; "a series of dreary dinner parties" [syn: drab, dreary] 2: causing dejection; "a blue day"; "the dark days of the war"; "a week of rainy depressing weather"; "a disconsolate winter landscape"; "the first dismal dispiriting days of November"; "a dark gloomy day"; "grim rainy weather" [syn: blue, dark, dingy, disconsolate, dismal, gloomy, grim, sorry, drab, drear, dreary] dreary yarder Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (2003) dreary adjective (drearier; -est) Etymology: Middle English drery, from Old English drēorig sad, bloody, from drēor gore; akin to Old High German trūrēn to be sad, Gothic driusan to fall Date: before 12th century 1. feeling, displaying, or reflecting listlessness or discouragement 2. having nothing likely to provide cheer, comfort, or interest ; gloomy, dismal Synonyms: see dismal • drearily adverb • dreariness noun Oxford English Reference Dictionary
Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner\'s English Dictionary dreary (drearier, dreariest) If you describe something as dreary, you mean that it is dull and depressing. ...a dreary little town in the Midwest... = dismal ADJ • drearily ...a drearily familiar scenario. ADV: ADV adj, ADV with v English Explanatory Dictionary dreary ˈdrɪərɪ adj. (drearier, dreariest) dismal, dull, gloomy. øødrearily adv. dreariness n. [OE dreorig f. dreor gore: rel. to dreosan to drop f. Gmc] Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) Dreary \Drear"y\, a. [Compar. Drearier; superl. Dreariest.] [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dre['o]rig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dre['o]san to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.] 1. Sorrowful; distressful. [Obs.] `` Dreary shrieks.'' --Spenser. 2. 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. English Explanatory Dictionary (Synonyms) dreary ˈdrɪərɪ adj. 1 dismal, joyless, cheerless, gloomy, bleak, drear, sombre, doleful, depressing, wretched; sad, melancholy, downcast, depressed, funereal, glum, unhappy, forlorn, mournful, morose, blue, miserable: One more day on these dreary moors and I shall go mad. Caroline was again in a dreary mood. 2 boring, lifeless, colourless, ennuyant, drab, dull, arid, dry, uninteresting, dead, monotonous, prosaic, tedious, tiresome, tiring, wearisome, wearying, humdrum, ordinary, vapid, run-of-the-mill, unstimulating, unexciting: Do you mean to tell me that that dreary book is a best seller! Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 228 Moby Thesaurus words for "dreary": Quaker-colored, acier, affecting, afflictive, apocalyptic, arid, ashen, ashy, bad, baleful, banausic, baneful, barren, bitter, black, blah, blank, bleak, bloodless, blue, bodeful, boding, boring, broken-record, canescent, characterless, cheerless, cinereous, cinerous, cold, colorless, comfortless, dapple, dapple-gray, dappled, dappled-gray, dark, dead, deplorable, depressed, depressing, depressive, dim, dingy, dire, discomforting, dismal, dismaying, dispiriting, distressful, distressing, doleful, dolorific, dolorogenic, dolorous, doomful, dove-colored, dove-gray, downcast, drab, draggy, drear, drearisome, dry, dryasdust, dull, dusty, effete, elephantine, empty, etiolated, everlasting, evil, evil-starred, fade, fateful, flat, foreboding, forlorn, funebrial, funereal, glaucescent, glaucous, gloomy, glum, grave, gray, gray-black, gray-brown, gray-colored, gray-drab, gray-green, gray-spotted, gray-toned, gray-white, grayed, grayish, grievous, grim, griseous, grizzle, grizzled, grizzly, harping, heavy, ho-hum, hollow, humdrum, ill, ill-boding, ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred, inane, inauspicious, inexcitable, insipid, invariable, iron-gray, jejune, jog-trot, joyless, lamentable, lead-gray, leaden, lifeless, livid, long-winded, low-spirited, lowering, melancholy, menacing, miserable, monotone, monotonous, morose, mournful, mouse-colored, mouse-gray, mousy, moving, of evil portent, ominous, oppressive, ordinary, painful, pale, pallid, pathetic, pearl, pearl-gray, pearly, pedestrian, piteous, pitiable, plodding, poignant, pointless, poky, ponderous, portending, portentous, prolix, prosaic, regrettable, rueful, run-of-the-mill, sad, saddening, saturnine, sharp, silver, silver-gray, silvered, silvery, singsong, sinister, slate-colored, slaty, slow, smoke-gray, smoky, sober, solemn, somber, sombrous, sore, sorrowful, spiritless, steel-gray, steely, sterile, stiff, stodgy, stone-colored, stuffy, superficial, tasteless, taupe, tedious, threatening, tiresome, tiring, touching, treadmill, triste, uncomfortable, uneventful, unexciting, unfavorable, unfortunate, unhappy, uninteresting, unlively, unlucky, unpromising, unpropitious, untoward, unvarying, vapid, weariful, wearisome, weary, wearying, woebegone, woeful, wooden, wretched |
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