gloom
Americannoun
-
total or partial darkness; dimness.
- Antonyms:
- brightness
-
a state of melancholy or depression; low spirits.
- Synonyms:
- sadness, despondency, dejection
- Antonyms:
- cheerful
-
a despondent or depressed look or expression.
verb (used without object)
-
to appear or become dark, dim, or somber.
-
to look sad, dismal, or dejected; frown.
verb (used with object)
-
to fill with gloom; make gloomy or sad; sadden.
-
to make dark or somber.
noun
-
partial or total darkness
-
a state of depression or melancholy
-
an appearance or expression of despondency or melancholy
-
poetic a dim or dark place
verb
-
(intr) to look sullen or depressed
-
to make or become dark or gloomy
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
undergloomnoun
-
outgloomverb (used with object)
-
ungloomverb (used with object)
-
gloomfuladjective
-
gloomlessadjective
-
gloomfullyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
gloomsimple
-
gloomssimple
-
have gloomedperfect
-
has gloomedperfect
-
am gloomingprogressive
-
are gloomingprogressive
-
is gloomingprogressive
-
have been gloomingperfect progressive
-
has been gloomingperfect progressive
Past
-
gloomedsimple
-
had gloomedperfect
-
was gloomingprogressive
-
were gloomingprogressive
-
had been gloomingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gloom
1300–50; Middle English gloumben, glomen to frown, perhaps representing Old English *glūmian (akin to early German gläumen to make turbid); see glum
Explanation
Gloom is a hazy darkness or dimness. The gloom of a moonless autumn evening is perfect for trick-or-treating, but not so perfect for sizing up your candy stash. It might make you nervous to walk in the gloom of your friend's rural neighborhood at night if you're used to well-lit city streets. And while gloom perfectly describes the near-dark of dusk or a foggy evening, it can also describe a dark, dismal mood. Your brother's gloom when his favorite basketball team loses in the playoffs will only deepen if your favorite team wins the tournament. Gloom is a Scottish word, originally meaning "a sullen look."
Vocabulary lists containing gloom
"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou
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Billie Holiday (1915–1959) Tribute List
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The lead up to the World Cup was no different, but the doom and gloom went away once the action began.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026
It’s not all doom and gloom in the software sector, as some high-profile stocks have posted standout gains this year while their peers languish.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 6, 2026
More disappointing is watching a role held aloft by Witherspoon’s charisma and unsinkable pep be submerged in attitudinal gloom despite Minetree’s best efforts.
From Salon ● Jul. 6, 2026
On Monday, all 10 home players lost their first-round matches and you could definitely feel the doom and gloom starting to creep in.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
I quite understood; my only doubt was as to whether any dream could be more terrible than the unnatural, horrible net of gloom and mystery which seemed closing around me.
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
Perhaps this is just the last defiant cry of a defeated Imperial-sponsored bounty hunter, determined to give our hero the glooms about her chances of victory before departing this mortal coil.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 7, 2016
Long-term ideas of “destiny” are not easily assimilated to shorter-term glooms about the loss of American power and prestige.
From Slate ● Nov. 21, 2011
While Lowrance glooms over gold's fickle ways, he is suddenly surrounded by gold-jacketed runners and other traders clad in bright red, green and purple coats.
From Time Magazine Archive
Church adored Turner, the greatest theatrician of landscape who ever lived, with his cloud arches and burning transparencies, his glooms and veils of color.
From Time Magazine Archive
‘Wind is changing!’ he cried, and with that, in a twinkling as it seemed, he and his fellows had vanished into the glooms, never to be seen by any Rider of Rohan again.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
This, gloomed Alsop, would be an "irreparable disaster."
From Time Magazine Archive
Winston Churchill augustly gloomed: "A great world statesman has fallen, and with him his country will undergo a period of anxiety and perhaps a temporary eclipse."
From Time Magazine Archive
In it, jobbers gloomed that they are under the thumb of Fruit Dispatch.
From Time Magazine Archive
They, too. gloomed as brisk Premier Flandin popped in as the new Governor of the Bank of France last week bland M. Jean Tannery.
From Time Magazine Archive
Sergeant Tozier had come up, that big-nosed man, towered over the lieutenant, gloomed down at him.
From "The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War" by Michael Shaara
The contrast between the way these people talk about the world, the performative doom ’n’ glooming so prevalent in social media and casual conversation, and their actual, lived concerns seems the point of Rooney’s fiction.
From Slate ● Sep. 1, 2021
Meanwhile in Manhattan, old-line publishers were glooming because there were no new writers to replace the big names rapidly dying off: Ruskin, Tennyson, Carlyle, Emerson, etc.
From Time Magazine Archive
Having perused well the chronicle of the week, the Vigilant Patriot views with alarm: A green glooming fluid in a sticky bottle.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Philharmonikers have kept a stiff upper lip, but the Philadelphians, after brooding and glooming for a whole season, last week broke out in a williwaw.
From Time Magazine Archive
The turtle paddled steadily toward her, a hump of shell glooming dark in the gray waves, and heaved herself onto the sand.
From "Nim’s Island" by Wendy Orr
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
