# gloom
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English *gloom, *glom, from Old English glōm (“gloaming, twilight, darkness”), from Proto-West Germanic *glōm, from Proto-Germanic *glōmaz (“gleam, shimmer, sheen”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰley- (“to gleam, shimmer, glow”). The English word is cognate with Norwegian glom (“transparent membrane”), Scots gloam (“twilight; faint light; dull gleam”).

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ɡluːm/
* (General American) IPA: /ɡlum/
* Audio (General American):(file)
* Rhymes: -uːm

### Noun

gloom (usually uncountable, plural glooms)
* Darkness, dimness, or obscurity.
    the gloom of a forest, or of midnight
** [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC: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.
** 2022 January 12, “News in pictures: Repatriated '66s' return home”, in RAIL, number 948, page 20: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.
* A depressing, despondent, or melancholic atmosphere.
** 1855, Robert Browning, “‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.’”, in Men and Women […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, stanza 19, page 142: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.
** 1956, “Heartbreak Hotel”, Mae Boren Axton, Tommy Durden, Elvis Presley (lyrics), performed by Elvis Presley:Although it's always crowded You still can find some room For broken-hearted lovers To cry there in their gloom.
* Cloudiness or heaviness of mind; melancholy; aspect of sorrow; low spirits; dullness.
** 1770, Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents:A sullen gloom and furious disorder prevailed by fits.
* A drying oven used in gunpowder manufacture.

#### Derived terms

* begloom
* doom and gloom
* engloom
* gloomcore
* gloomful
* gloomies
* gloomily
* gloomish
* gloomleader
* gloomless
* gloomsome
* gloomster
* gloomth
* gloomward
* gloomy
* June gloom
* outgloom
* overgloom
* semigloom
* undergloom
* ungloomed

#### Related terms

* gloam

#### Translations
### Verb

gloom (third-person singular simple present glooms, present participle glooming, simple past and past participle gloomed)
* (intransitive) To be dark or gloomy.
** 1770, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, a Poem, London: […] W[illiam] Griffin, […], →OCLC, page 17:Here, while the proud their long drawn pomps diſplay, / There the black gibbet glooms beſide the way.
** 1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country, Nebraska, published 2005, page 189:Around all the dark forest gloomed.
* (intransitive) To look or feel sad, sullen or despondent.
    Synonyms: grieve, mourn; see also Thesaurus:be sad
** 1882, W. Marshall, Strange Chapman, volume 2, page 170: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.
** a. 1930, D. H. Lawrence, The Lovely Lady:Ciss was a big, dark-complexioned, pug-faced young woman who seemed to be glooming about something.
** 1904 November 10, Henry James, chapter XVI, in The Golden Bowl, volume I, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, book first (The Prince), part third, page 283:"Is Maggie then astonishing too?"—and he gloomed out of his window.
** 1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1965, →OCLC, page 85:He gloomed for some moments above the round-topped table[.]
* (transitive) To render gloomy or dark; to obscure; to darken.
** 1855, Alfred Tennyson, “The Letters”, in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 115:A black yew gloom'd the stagnant air.
* (transitive) To fill with gloom; to make sad, dismal, or sullen.
** 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Vivien”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 110: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, […]
** 1770, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, a Poem, London: […] W[illiam] Griffin, […], →OCLC, page 20:Good Heaven! What ſorrows gloom'd that parting day, / That called them from their native walks away; […]
* To shine or appear obscurely or imperfectly; to glimmer.