All 9 Uses
dismal
in
Dante's Inferno -- translated by Longfellow
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- And he to me: "These things shall all be known
To thee, as soon as we our footsteps stay
Upon the dismal shore of Acheron."†Canto 1.1-11dismal = depressing or gloomy - And the Guide said to me: "He wakes no more
This side the sound of the angelic trumpet;
When shall approach the hostile Potentate,
Each one shall find again his dismal tomb,
Shall reassume his flesh and his own figure,
Shall hear what through eternity re-echoes."†Canto 1.1-11 - The courtesan who never from the dwelling
Of Caesar turned aside her strumpet eyes,
Death universal and the vice of courts,
Inflamed against me all the other minds,
And they, inflamed, did so inflame Augustus,
That my glad honours turned to dismal mournings.†Canto 1.12-22 - Here we shall drag them, and along the dismal
Forest our bodies shall suspended be,
Each to the thorn of his molested shade.†Canto 1.12-22 - And he to us: "O souls, that hither come
To look upon the shameful massacre
That has so rent away from me my leaves,
Gather them up beneath the dismal bush;
I of that city was which to the Baptist
Changed its first patron, wherefore he for this
Forever with his art will make it sad.†Canto 1.12-22 - Among this cruel and most dismal throng
People were running naked and affrighted.†Canto 1.23-34 - Between his legs were hanging down his entrails;
His heart was visible, and the dismal sack
That maketh excrement of what is eaten.†Canto 1.23-34 - This on the belly, that upon the back
One of the other lay, and others crawling
Shifted themselves along the dismal road.†Canto 1.23-34 * - Inferno: Canto XXXII
If I had rhymes both rough and stridulous,
As were appropriate to the dismal hole
Down upon which thrust all the other rocks,
I would press out the juice of my conception
More fully; but because I have them not,
Not without fear I bring myself to speak;
For 'tis no enterprise to take in jest,
To sketch the bottom of all the universe,
Nor for a tongue that cries Mamma and Babbo.†Canto 1.23-34
Definitions:
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(1)
(dismal) of terrible quality or depressing; or dark and dreary (as when bad weather blocks the sun or when it is drizzly)
- (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)