Glum
adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 sullenness obsolete, uncountable
"That they be deaf and dumb, And play silence and glum"
- 1 To look sullen; to be of a sour countenance; to be glum. obsolete
"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"
- 1 Despondent; moody; sullen.
"I[…]frighten people by my glum face."
- 1 moody and melancholic wordnet
- 2 showing a brooding ill humor wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Don't be so glum about it. Life has its ups and downs."
Etymology
Probably from Middle Low German glum (“glum”), related to German dialectal glumm (“gloomy, troubled, turbid”). More at gloomy.
From Middle English glomen, glommen, glomben, gloumben (“to frown, look sullen”), from *glom (“gloom”). More at gloom. The noun is from Middle English glome, from the verb.
More for "glum"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.