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Gloom
Definitions
- 1 Darkness, dimness, or obscurity. uncountable, usually
"the gloom of a forest, or of midnight"
- 2 a feeling of melancholy apprehension wordnet
- 3 A depressing, despondent, or melancholic atmosphere. uncountable, usually
"A sudden little river crossed my path / As unexpected as a serpent comes. / No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms— / This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath / For the fiend's glowing hoof—to see the wrath / Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes."
- 4 a state of partial or total darkness wordnet
- 5 Cloudiness or heaviness of mind; melancholy; aspect of sorrow; low spirits; dullness. uncountable, usually
"A sullen gloom and furious disorder prevailed by fits."
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- 6 an atmosphere of depression and melancholy wordnet
- 7 A drying oven used in gunpowder manufacture. uncountable, usually
- 1 To be dark or gloomy. intransitive
"Here, while the proud their long drawn pomps diſplay, / There the black gibbet glooms beſide the way."
- 2 To look or feel sad, sullen or despondent. intransitive
"Her face gathers, furrows, glooms; arching eyebrows wrinkle into horizontals, and a tinge of bitterness unsmooths the cheek and robs the lip of sweetened grace. She is evidently perturbed."
- 3 To render gloomy or dark; to obscure; to darken. transitive
"A black yew gloom'd the stagnant air."
- 4 To fill with gloom; to make sad, dismal, or sullen. transitive
"For see you not, dear love, / Such a mood as that, which lately gloom'd / Your fancy when you saw me following you, / Must make me fear still more you are not mine, […]"
- 5 To shine or appear obscurely or imperfectly; to glimmer.
Etymology
From Middle English *gloom, *glom, from Old English glōm (“gloaming, twilight, darkness”), from Proto-West Germanic *glōm, from Proto-Germanic *glōmaz (“gleam, shimmer, sheen”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰley- (“to gleam, shimmer, glow”). The English word is cognate with Norwegian glom (“transparent membrane”), Scots gloam (“twilight; faint light; dull gleam”).
From Middle English *gloom, *glom, from Old English glōm (“gloaming, twilight, darkness”), from Proto-West Germanic *glōm, from Proto-Germanic *glōmaz (“gleam, shimmer, sheen”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰley- (“to gleam, shimmer, glow”). The English word is cognate with Norwegian glom (“transparent membrane”), Scots gloam (“twilight; faint light; dull gleam”).
See also for "gloom"
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