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)
-
glooms,
present (3rd person singular)
-
gloomed,
past participle, past
-
glooming
present participle
-
to appear or become dark, dim, or somber.
-
to look sad, dismal, or dejected; frown.
verb (used with object)
-
glooms,
present (3rd person singular)
-
gloomed,
past participle, past
-
glooming
present participle
-
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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"The Blue and the Gray" by Francis Miles Finch
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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:
But recently, spending behavior doesn’t reflect the gloom that many people say they feel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
And for much of the game Sunday, gloom once again engulfed McVay and a team that opened the season as a heavy Super Bowl favorite.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026
For all the "doom and gloom", Nike will stay number one, according to Powell - millions worldwide, including young people, remain loyal - but its mistakes have dented its dominance.
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
While he said talks would resume this week, that was unable to lift the gloom on trading floors, with traders contemplating further rises in inflation that will force the Fed to tighten monetary policy more.
From Barron's ● Sep. 29, 2026
It took a few heartbeats—several pulse-pounding heartbeats—before my eyes adjusted to the gloom.
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
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
The energy crisis glooms over us all, as does the memory of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war that led to the closing of the canal and the rerouting of shipping round Africa.
From Time Magazine Archive
He glooms that it costs him plenty to be cheap, since he feels he has to tip extra because of it.
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
"No," gloomed Lord Cranborne, "it is not being fortified by leave of anyone."
From Time Magazine Archive
James Redd gloomed when Cow Creek flooded his farm, brightened when he harvested $200 worth of lost balls washed from a neighboring golf course.
From Time Magazine Archive
"How the money can be found is not my business," gloomed Transport Commission Chairman General Sir Brian Robertson.
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
He snorted, gloomed, looked up into Chamberlain’s eyes and blinked.
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
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
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
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.
