Abysmal
//əˈbɪz.məl// adj
adj ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Adjective
- 1 Pertaining to, or resembling an abyss. archaic
"The latter [geology] gives one the same sort of bewildering view of the abysmal extent of Time that Astronomy does of Space. [First attested in the early 19ᵗʰ century.]"
- 2 Extremely bad; terrible. figuratively
"Robben curled an effort against the foot of the post from the edge of the box after being gifted the ball by an abysmal clearance from keeper Stephan Andersen."
Adjective
- 1 resembling an abyss in depth; so deep as to be unmeasurable wordnet
- 2 very great; limitless wordnet
Example
More examples"His understanding of logic is abysmal."
Etymology
From abysm + -al. Compare abyssal.
More for "abysmal"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.