dreary Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. adjective satellite lacking in liveliness or charm or surprise
    drab.
    • her drab personality
    • life was drab compared with the more exciting life style overseas
    • a series of dreary dinner parties
  2. adjective satellite causing dejection
    blue; dingy; drear; disconsolate; dark; gloomy; dismal; drab; sorry; grim.
    • a blue day
    • the dark days of the war
    • a week of rainy depressing weather
    • a disconsolate winter landscape
    • the first dismal dispiriting days of November
    • a dark gloomy day
    • grim rainy weather

WordNet

Drear"y adjective
Etymology
OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dreórig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dreósan to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.
Wordforms
comparative Drearier ; superlative Dreariest
Definitions
  1. Sorrowful; distressful. Obs. " Dreary shrieks." Spenser.
  2. Exciting cheerless sensations, feelings, or associations; comfortless; dismal; gloomy. " Dreary shades." Dryden. "The dreary ground." Prior.
    Full many a dreary anxious hour. Keble.
    Johnson entered on his vocation in the most dreary part of that dreary interval which separated two ages of prosperity. Macaulay.

Webster 1913