3 uses
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Definition
of terrible quality or depressing; or dark and dreary (as when bad weather blocks the sun or when it is drizzly)
- This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee, An unceasing death-bell tolls there.Book 32 — FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT (12% in)
- ...in their boats under shelter of high banks, Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle, others sit on the gunwale smoking and talking; Late in the afternoon the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp, There are the greenish waters, the resinous odor, the plenteous moss, the cypress-tree, and the juniper-tree; Northward, young men of Mannahatta, the target company from an excursion returning home at evening, the musket-muzzles all bear...Book 10 — Our Old Feuillage (45% in)
- O wild and dismal night storm, with wind—O belching and desperate!Book 19 — SEA-DRIFT (61% in)
There are no more uses of "dismal" in Leaves of Grass.
Typical Usage
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