dreary
Americanadjective
-
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
- drearily adverb
- dreariness noun
- drearisome adjective
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
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.
Every night we stay in the same dreary kind of motel off the highway, with a TV bolted to the wall and multiple locks on the door.
From Literature
Academics preferred the 20th century’s drearier strains of pessimistic poetry.
Tolkien, in part for the reprieve they offer from the dreary and mundane.
The exception to this dreary trend—the really wonderful bright spot that cheers both the reader’s and the author’s heart—are classical schools, where academic study is based on what Mr. Traub calls “beautiful content.”
An 11-6 regular season record couldn’t disguise a dreary team that played excellent defense but hardly moved the ball.
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.
