doldrums

Syllables: dol·drumsUK/ˈdɒldɹəmz//ˈdɑldɹəmz/

doldrums noun: usually preceded by the: a state of apathy or lack of interest; a situation where one feels boredom, ennui, or tedium; a state of listlessness or malaise. Also the plural of doldrum.

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Noun

doldrums pl (plural only)

(plural, plural-only) Usually preceded by the: a state of apathy or lack of interest; a situation where one feels boredom, ennui, or tedium; a state of listlessness or malaise.
- I was in the doldrums yesterday and just didn’t feel inspired.
- [T]aken very ill in Cheapside—three pennyworth of brandy, and got home to bed at nine, in the doldrums.1827, “[Varieties.] Extracts from the Common-place Book of a Newspaper-reporter of Accidents.”, in Meyer’s British Chronicle, a Universal Review of British Literature, &c., volume II, number 4...
Synonyms:

dumps
(plural, plural-only) Usually preceded by the: the state of a sailing ship when it is impeded by calms or light, baffling winds, and is unable to make progress.
- [F]rom the bluff-head, where I watched to-day, / I saw her in the doldrums; for the wind / Was light and baffling.1823, Lord Byron, “Canto II”, in The Island, or Christian and His Comrades, London: […] John Hunt, […], →OCLC, stanza XXII, page 44, lines 507–509
(broadly, plural, plural-only) Usually preceded by the: a part of the ocean near the equator where calms, squalls, and light, baffling winds are common.
- Mr. Ralph Abercromby has made special observations on the upper wind currents over the equator in the Atlantic Ocean. [...] With respect to the general circulation of the atmosphere we know that the surface trades either die out at the doldrums or unite into one moderate east current; that the low...1890, George E. Curtis, “[General Appendix to the Smithsonian Report for 1889] Progress of Meteorology in 1889”, in Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, Showing the...
- Hurricanes are known to develop in the belt of doldrums in the southern North Atlantic Ocean and also in the western Caribbean Sea when the Pacific doldrum belt extends into that area. However, many tropical storms of the Gulf, Caribbean, and southern North Atlantic have not with certainty been...1938, I[van] R[ay] Tannehill, “Places of Origin”, in The Hurricane: (Revised 1938) (United States Department of Agriculture Miscellaneous Publication; no. 197), Washington, D.C.: United States...
Synonyms:

calms, intertropical convergence zone

Also used as

doldrums is also the plural of doldrum.

doldrums meaning in Indonesian

doldrums in Indonesian

part of the ocean near the equator: doldrum

Examples of doldrums in a sentence

1987 The economic doldrums from oil prices continue to affect the state, causing many to lose their jobs and leave, banks to foreclose on property, and businesses to go bankrupt.1995 January, A Look Back at Alaska, [Anchorage, Alaska?]: [United States Department of Agriculture], →OCLC, page [4]:
It is typical for adolescents to respond to the doldrums, feeling dead or numb inside, by sleeping a lot, watching hours upon hours of television, holing up in their room for days on end.1998, Richard Frankel, “Life and Death Imagery in Adolescence”, in The Adolescent Psyche: Jungian and Winnicottian Perspectives, London...
Hurricanes are known to develop in the belt of doldrums in the southern North Atlantic Ocean and also in the western Caribbean Sea when the Pacific doldrum belt extends into that area.1938, I[van] R[ay] Tannehill, “Places of Origin”, in The Hurricane: (Revised 1938) (United States Department of Agriculture Miscellaneous...
[...] The High Encounter entered the doldrums near the equator, where the ship ended up in the captain's effort to avoid the British.2001, Douglas Berry, chapter 41, in A Ship Called Grace, Lincoln, Neb.: Writer’s Showcase, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 313:

Synonyms of doldrums

Origin of doldrums

From obsolete doldrum (“slothful or stupid person”) plus the plural suffix -s. Doldrum is possibly derived from dull or Middle English dold (past participle of dullen, dollen (“to make or become blunt or dull; to make or become dull-witted or stupid; to make or become inactive”), from dul, dol, dolle (“not sharp, blunt, dull; not quick-witted, stupid; lethargic, sluggish”); see further at dull), modelled after tantrum.

Questions about doldrums

What does doldrums mean?: Doldrums means usually preceded by the: a state of apathy or lack of interest; a situation where one feels boredom, ennui, or tedium; a state of listlessness or malaise.
What is doldrums in Indonesian?: Doldrums in Indonesian is doldrum. See Doldrums meaning in Indonesian.
How do you use doldrums in a sentence?: 1987 The economic doldrums from oil prices continue to affect the state, causing many to lose their jobs and leave, banks to foreclose on property, and businesses to go bankrupt.
What part of speech is doldrums?: Doldrums is a noun.
How do you pronounce doldrums?: Doldrums is pronounced /ˈdɒldɹəmz/ (UK).

Words near doldrums in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: doldrums (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-doldrums.ogg.

Cite this entry: “doldrums.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doldrums. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.