Word.ws English Dictionary

sombrous

UK/ˈsɒmbɹəs/

sombrous adjective: gloomy; sombre.

Adjective

sombrous (comparative more sombrous, superlative most sombrous)

  1. Gloomy; sombre.
    • Before me rose an avenue / Of tall and sombrous pines; / Abroad their fan-like branches grew, / And, where the sunshine darted through, / Spread a vapor soft and blue, / In long and sloping lines.1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Prelude
    • It was some time before my eyes became used to its artificial dusk, and I could make out the different animals leading their sombrous lives behind the glass by the light of a pale moon.2001, WG Sebald, translated by Anthea Bell, Austerlitz, Penguin, published 2011, page 2

Forms of sombrous

comparativemore sombrous
superlativemost sombrous

Origin of sombrous

From French sombre + -ous. Compare Spanish sombroso.

Questions about sombrous

What does sombrous mean?
Sombrous means gloomy; sombre.
What part of speech is sombrous?
Sombrous is an adjective.
How do you pronounce sombrous?
Sombrous is pronounced /ˈsɒmbɹəs/ (UK).

Words near sombrous in the dictionary

  1. sombresome
  2. sombrest
  3. sombriety
  4. sombring
  5. sombrish
  6. sombrous
  7. sombrously
  8. sombrousness
  9. sombuddy
  10. sombudy
  11. somdel

Source and license

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