Dismal vs Desolate - What's the difference?
dismal | desolate |
Disappointingly inadequate.
* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=April 22, author=Sam Sheringham, work=BBC Sport
, title= Gloomy and bleak.
Depressing.
*, chapter=12
, title= Deserted and devoid of inhabitants.
* Bible, Jer. ix. 11
* Tennyson
Barren and lifeless.
Made unfit for habitation or use; laid waste; neglected; destroyed.
Dismal or dreary.
Sad, forlorn and hopeless.
* Keble
To deprive of inhabitants.
To devastate or lay waste somewhere.
To abandon or forsake something.
To make someone sad, forlorn and hopeless.
As adjectives the difference between dismal and desolate
is that dismal is disappointingly inadequate while desolate is deserted and devoid of inhabitants.As a verb desolate is
to deprive of inhabitants.dismal
English
Adjective
(en adjective)Liverpool 0-1 West Brom, passage=Liverpool's efforts thereafter had an air of desperation as their dismal 2012 league form continued.}}
Mr. Pratt's Patients, passage=So, after a spell, he decided to make the best of it and shoved us into the front parlor. 'Twas a dismal sort of place, with hair wreaths, and wax fruit, and tin lambrekins, and land knows what all. It looked like a tomb and smelt pretty nigh as musty and dead-and-gone.}}
Usage notes
* Nouns to which "dismal" is often applied: failure, performance, state, record, place, result, scene, season, year, economy, future, fate, weather, news, condition, history.Synonyms
* See alsoDerived terms
* dismal sciencedesolate
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- a desolate''' isle; a '''desolate''' wilderness; a '''desolate house
- I will make Jerusalem a den of dragons, and I will make the cities of Judah desolate , without an inhabitant.
- And the silvery marish flowers that throng / The desolate creeks and pools among.
- desolate altars
- He was left desolate by the early death of his wife.
- voice of the poor and desolate