dismayful

Adjective

dismayful (comparative more dismayful, superlative most dismayful)

1. (obsolete) Terrifying
   • And much dismay'd with that dismayful Sight,
     That back she would have turn'd for great Affright1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
   • O let despair Haunt unbless'd souls; let its dismayful looks Affright not thee, thou source of clearest hope, Which in one stream thro' earthly dullness flows Into this glad receptacle, the heart.1839, Thomas Gordon Hake, The Piromides: A Tragedy, page 23

   Synonyms:

   affreux, alarming, spine-tingling, appalling, awful, eldritch, buggish, butt-clenching, buttock-clenching, dreadful

2. (obsolete) Dismaying; disheartening.
   • The most unvaluable and dismayful loss of my most dear and heroical Patron, Prince Henry, hath so stricken all my spirits to the earth, that I will never more dare to look up to any greatness; but resolving the little rest of my poor life to obscurity, and the shadow of his death, prepare ever...1612, George Chapman, Epicedium; or, a Funderal Song
   • Engrossed in the rich, transparent beauty, pathos, and wisdom of Virgil, and the living rhetoric of Cicero's elaborate pleadings, as well as those other classic writers of antiquity, who, amidst outward barbarism, darkness, and dismayful ignorance, then brought to the student's lonely heart the...1862, S. N., “Martin Luther-The Reformation”, in The British Controversialist and Literary Magazine, volume 2, page 8
3. (obsolete) Dismayed; full of disappointment or low spirits.
   • But as the signs that day were different from what they had been at any former time when this adventure had been essayed, the city itself was overspread with so thick and black a cloud, and filled with sounds so dolorous and dismayful, that no one had either judgment so free, or heart so strong, as...1807, Francisco de Morais, Robert Southey, Palmerin of England - Volume 3, page 6
   • and then to realise, at the last solemn account, an utter, hopeless, dismayful disappointment, and to find, that of his vast benefactions, by intellectual mastery, to the world, he has himself saved nothing; that whilst gaining the admiration of the whole world, he has lost his own soul!1850, William Scoresby (the Younger), Jehovah glorified in His Works., page 20