Word.ws English Dictionary

dismally

/ˈdɪz.mə.li/

dismally adverb: in a dismal manner.

Adverb

dismally (comparative more dismally, superlative most dismally)

  1. In a dismal manner.
    • The ribs of the few horses showed dismally.1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 291
    • Outside an owl was hooting most dismally in the darkness.1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019

Forms of dismally

comparativemore dismally
superlativemost dismally

Origin of dismally

From dismal + -ly.

Questions about dismally

What does dismally mean?
Dismally means in a dismal manner.
What part of speech is dismally?
Dismally is an adverb.
How do you pronounce dismally?
Dismally is pronounced /ˈdɪz.mə.li/ (UK).

Words near dismally in the dictionary

  1. dismalized
  2. dismalizes
  3. dismalizing
  4. dismaller
  5. dismallest
  6. dismally
  7. dismalness
  8. dismalnesses
  9. dismals
  10. disman
  11. dismanned

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dismally (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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