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Gloom vs Forlorn - What's the difference?

gloom | forlorn |

As verbs the difference between gloom and forlorn

is that gloom is to be dark or gloomy while forlorn is (obsolete).

As a noun gloom

is darkness, dimness or obscurity.

As an adjective forlorn is

abandoned, left behind, deserted.

gloom

English

Noun

(-)
  • Darkness, dimness or obscurity.
    • the gloom of a forest, or of midnight
  • * 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 4
    • 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.
  • A melancholy, depressing or despondent atmosphere.
  • Cloudiness or heaviness of mind; melancholy; aspect of sorrow; low spirits; dullness.
  • * Burke
    • A sullen gloom and furious disorder prevailed by fits.
  • A drying oven used in gunpowder manufacture.

    • Derived terms

    * doom and gloom * gloomily * (l) (humorous) * gloomy

    Related terms

    * (l)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To be dark or gloomy.
  • * Goldsmith
    • The black gibbet glooms beside the way.
  • * 1891 , Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country , Nebraska 2005, p. 189:
    • Around all the dark forest gloomed .
  • to look or feel sad, sullen or despondent.
  • * D. H. Lawrence
    • Ciss was a big, dark-complexioned, pug-faced young woman who seemed to be glooming about something.
  • To render gloomy or dark; to obscure; to darken.
  • * Walpole
    • A bow window gloomed with limes.
  • * Tennyson
    • A black yew gloomed the stagnant air.
  • To fill with gloom; to make sad, dismal, or sullen.
  • * Tennyson
    • Such a mood as that which lately gloomed your fancy.
  • * Goldsmith
    • What sorrows gloomed that parting day.
  • To shine or appear obscurely or imperfectly; to glimmer.

    • Quotations

    * (English Citations of "gloom")

    forlorn

    English

    Verb

    (head)
  • (obsolete)

    • Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • Abandoned, left behind, deserted.
  • * (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
    • Of fortune and of hope at once forlorn .
  • * (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
    • Some say that ravens foster forlorn children.
  • Miserable, as when lonely being abandoned.
  • * (Oliver Goldsmith) (1730-1774)
    • For here forlorn and lost I tread.
  • * (1796-1859)
    • The condition of the besieged in the mean time was forlorn in the extreme.
  • * (Mowbray Thomson) (1832-1917)
    • She cherished the forlorn hope that he was still living in captivity
  • *{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers)
    • , chapter=6, title= A Cuckoo in the Nest , passage=Sophia broke down here. Even at this moment she was subconsciously comparing her rendering of the part of the forlorn bride with Miss Marie Lohr's.}}

    Derived terms

    * forlorn hope * forlornness * forlornly

    Synonyms

    * * (miserable ) forsaken