dreary
Americanadjective
-
drearier,
comparative
-
dreariest
superlative
-
causing sadness or gloom.
- Synonyms:
- comfortless, depressing, cheerless, drear, dismal, gloomy
- Antonyms:
- cheerful
-
dull; boring.
- Synonyms:
- tiresome, wearisome, monotonous, tedious
- Antonyms:
- interesting
-
sorrowful; sad.
adjective
-
sad or dull; dismal
-
wearying; boring
-
archaic miserable
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of dreary
before 900; Middle English drery, Old English drēorig gory, cruel, sad, equivalent to drēor gore + -ig -y 1; akin to Old Norse dreyrigr bloody, German traurig sad
Explanation
When something is dreary it's depressing or lifeless in a rainy-day way. I finished my work, there was nothing on TV, and the rain just wouldn't stop: what a dreary day! Dreary can refer to a feeling, a place, a time, or even a thing. It sounds a little like a combination of "drizzle" and "teary," and that's not a bad way to remember what it means. My grandmother's house was a dreary affair: run down, poorly lit, and silent but for the buzz of the fluorescent light in the cramped kitchen. Some might call the recession a depression: I call it dreary, either way. If the economy remains dreary like this much longer, I just might move to China.
Vocabulary lists containing dreary
100 SAT Words Beginning with "D"
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This Week in Words: September 4 - 8, 2017
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Charlotte's Web
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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:
He managed his way through all of that, even when his team were putting in dreary performances.
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2026
The Gray Lady’s dreary Luddites are as suspicious of Times management as they are of Silicon Valley.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026
A period of dreary, windy, cool weather is settling across Southern California this week, as a cold system from the Pacific Northwest moves south.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 26, 2026
It is 9 p.m. on a dreary night in Shadow Hills, just miles away from the lush foothills of the Verdugo Mountains.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2026
Which is why it’s so bright for a dreary November afternoon.
From "Ask the Passengers" by A.S. King
Academics preferred the 20th century’s drearier strains of pessimistic poetry.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
Allen closed his essay emphasizing the significance of Keaton’s death: “A few days ago the world was a place that included Diane Keaton. Now it’s a world that does not. Hence it’s a drearier world.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2025
He added that the world was now a "drearier" place without her in it.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2025
Once the game is afoot, though, “The Menu’s” soufflé starts to sag, with the plot becoming drearier in direct proportion to the body-horror jump scares.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 16, 2022
If Courtney and Jupiter take notice of my drearier demeanor post-field-trip-and-photo-discovery, neither lets on.
From "Odd One Out" by Nic Stone
And as an already sleep deprived, anxiety attack-prone person facing the darkest, dreariest season of the year, I figured it was worth a shot to try to nourish my way to a better attitude.
From Salon ● Dec. 25, 2023
"The problem with Pixar's latest feature isn't just that it's the animation house's dullest, dreariest, most spiritually empty to date. It's that it fails even on its own painstakingly contrived open-goal terms."
From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2022
After losing his bid for speaker, De León was stripped of his Appropriations chairmanship and relegated to one of the dreariest offices in the state Capitol.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 30, 2022
The experts at MLB.com are the dreariest I’ve found: They think Washington will only sign all-star reliever Brad Hand and all-star catcher James McCann.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 19, 2020
Turner knew from the map there were another seven miles, and once they were on the move again, they were the hardest, the dreariest they had walked that day.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
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.
