gloom

noun

1. (uncountable, usually)Darkness, dimness, or obscurity.

   “the gloom of a forest, or of midnight”

   “Here was a surprise, and a sad one for me, for I perceived that I had slept away a day, and that the sun was setting for another night. And yet it mattered little, for night or daytime there was no light to help me in this horrible place; and though my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom, I could make out nothing to show me where to work.”

   “On December 13, Maritime-liveried 66051 powers out of the early morning gloom with three repatriated Class 66s, on the 0809 Dollands Moor Sidings-Scunthorpe Redbourne Siding.”

2. (uncountable, usually)A depressing, despondent, or melancholic atmosphere.

   “A sudden little river crossed my path / As unexpected as a serpent comes. / No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms— / This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath / For the fiend's glowing hoof—to see the wrath / Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.”

   “Although it's always crowded You still can find some room For broken-hearted lovers To cry there in their gloom.”

3. (uncountable, usually)Cloudiness or heaviness of mind; melancholy; aspect of sorrow; low spirits; dullness.

   “A sullen gloom and furious disorder prevailed by fits.”

4. (uncountable, usually)A drying oven used in gunpowder manufacture.

verb

1. (intransitive)To be dark or gloomy.

   “Here, while the proud their long drawn pomps diſplay, / There the black gibbet glooms beſide the way.”

   “Around all the dark forest gloomed.”

2. (intransitive)To look or feel sad, sullen or despondent.

   “Her face gathers, furrows, glooms; arching eyebrows wrinkle into horizontals, and a tinge of bitterness unsmooths the cheek and robs the lip of sweetened grace. She is evidently perturbed.”

   “Ciss was a big, dark-complexioned, pug-faced young woman who seemed to be glooming about something.”

   “"Is Maggie then astonishing too?"—and he gloomed out of his window.”

   “He gloomed for some moments above the round-topped table[.]”

3. (transitive)To render gloomy or dark; to obscure; to darken.

   “A black yew gloom'd the stagnant air.”

4. (transitive)To fill with gloom; to make sad, dismal, or sullen.

   “For see you not, dear love, / Such a mood as that, which lately gloom'd / Your fancy when you saw me following you, / Must make me fear still more you are not mine, […]”

   “Good Heaven! What ſorrows gloom'd that parting day, / That called them from their native walks away; […]”

5. To shine or appear obscurely or imperfectly; to glimmer.