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Miserable vs Dismal - What's the difference?

miserable | dismal |

As adjectives the difference between miserable and dismal

is that miserable is destitute, impoverished while dismal is disappointingly inadequate.

As a noun miserable

is wretch, scoundrel.

miserable

English

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • In a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.
  • *
  • *:Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.
  • *, chapter=7
    • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St.?Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London.}}
  • * (George Bernard Shaw) (1856–1950)
  • *:The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure is occupation.
  • Very bad (at something); unskilled, incompetent.
  • :
  • Wretched; worthless; mean.
  • :
  • (lb) Causing unhappiness or misery.
  • *(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
  • *:What's more miserable than discontent?
  • (lb) Avaricious; niggardly; miserly.
  • :(Hooker)

    • Usage notes

    * Nouns to which "miserable" is often applied: life, condition, state, situation, day, time, creature, person, child, failure, place, world, season, year, week, experience, feeling, work, town, city, wage, job, case, excuse, dog.

    Synonyms

    * See also * See also

    Derived terms

    * miserablism * miserabilism * miserablist * miserabilist

    dismal

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Disappointingly inadequate.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=April 22, author=Sam Sheringham, work=BBC Sport
    • , title= Liverpool 0-1 West Brom , passage=Liverpool's efforts thereafter had an air of desperation as their dismal 2012 league form continued.}}
  • Gloomy and bleak.
  • Depressing.
  • *, chapter=12
    • , title= 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 also

    Derived terms

    * dismal science