dolesome

American  

[dohl-suhm] / ˈdoʊl səm /

adjective

Literary.

1. doleful.

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Etymology

Origin of dolesome

First recorded in 1525–35; dole ² + -some ¹

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dolesome

A dolesome thing," he said; "but my mother was wont to sing it to the virginals.

From Henry Brocken His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance by De la Mare, Walter

So cherished, I shall never die; Pray, therefore, spare your dolesome praises, Your elegies, and plaintive cries, For I shall fertilize no daisies!

From Echoes from the Sabine Farm by Field, Roswell Martin

Thus we descended into the fourth chasm,   Gaining still farther on the dolesome shore   Which all the woe of the universe insacks.

From Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Complete by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Ah! it’s a dolesome change from Sir Murray to Sir Brian yonder at the end, and worse still, to your father, as wouldn’t put nothing on but a breast-piece and back-piece and a steel cap.”

From The Young Castellan A Tale of the English Civil War by Fenn, George Manville

Straight all the mother in her soul awakes, And, owning her Ulysses, thus she speaks; 'Comest thou, my son, alive, to realms beneath, The dolesome realms of darkness and of death!

From The Odyssey by Pope, Alexander