All 4 Uses

somber
in
The Joy Luck Club
(Auto-generated)

to sit and wait for our own deaths with proper somber faces
Chpt 2 *

somber = serious--without humour or fun
Oh, it's not a somber day, more like a picnic, but it has special meaning to someone looking for grandsons.†
Chpt 4
And then my mother became somber again.†
Chpt 17
And when I was not watching which way my feet were moving, I looked up and saw everybody was in a hurry, everybody seemed unhappy: families with old mothers and fathers, all wearing dark, somber colors, pushing and pulling bags and crates of their life's possessions; pale foreign ladies dressed like my mother, walking with foreign men in hats; rich wives scolding maids and servants following behind carrying trunks and babies and baskets of food.†
Chpt 17

Definitions:

(1) (somber as in: a somber mood)
serious (without cheer or lightheartedness); or sad
(2) (somber as in: somber colors)
lacking brightness or color -- perhaps gloomy
(3) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)