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gloom

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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English

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”).

Pronunciation

Noun

gloom (usually uncountable, plural glooms)

  1. Darkness, dimness, or obscurity.
    the gloom of a forest, or of midnight
    • [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC:
      Here was a surprise, and a sad one for me, for I perceived that I had slept away a day, and that the sun was setting for another night. And yet it mattered little, for night or daytime there was no light to help me in this horrible place; and though my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom, I could make out nothing to show me where to work.
    • 2022 January 12, “News in pictures: Repatriated '66s' return home”, in RAIL, number 948, page 20:
      On December 13, Maritime-liveried 66051 powers out of the early morning gloom with three repatriated Class 66s, on the 0809 Dollands Moor Sidings-Scunthorpe Redbourne Siding.
  2. A depressing, despondent, or melancholic atmosphere.
    • 1855, Robert Browning, “‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.’”, in Men and Women […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, stanza 19, page 142:
      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.
    • 1956, “Heartbreak Hotel”, Mae Boren Axton, Tommy Durden, Elvis Presley (lyrics), performed by Elvis Presley:
      Although it's always crowded
      You still can find some room
      For broken-hearted lovers
      To cry there in their gloom.
  3. Cloudiness or heaviness of mind; melancholy; aspect of sorrow; low spirits; dullness.
    • 1770, Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents:
      A sullen gloom and furious disorder prevailed by fits.
  4. A drying oven used in gunpowder manufacture.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

gloom (third-person singular simple present glooms, present participle glooming, simple past and past participle gloomed)

  1. (intransitive) To be dark or gloomy.
  2. (intransitive) To look or feel sad, sullen or despondent.
    Synonyms: grieve, mourn; see also Thesaurus:be sad
    • 1882, W. Marshall, Strange Chapman: A North of England Story, volume 2, London: Hurst and Blackett, →OCLC, page 170:
      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.
    • a. 1930, D. H. Lawrence, The Lovely Lady:
      Ciss was a big, dark-complexioned, pug-faced young woman who seemed to be glooming about something.
    • 1904 November 10, Henry James, chapter XVI, in The Golden Bowl, volume I, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, 1st book (The Prince), 3rd part, page 283:
      "Is Maggie then astonishing too?"—and he gloomed out of his window.
    • 1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 85:
      He gloomed for some moments above the round-topped table[.]
  3. (transitive) To render gloomy or dark; to obscure; to darken.
  4. (transitive) To fill with gloom; to make sad, dismal, or sullen.
  5. To shine or appear obscurely or imperfectly; to glimmer.
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