Adjective: dreary
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
| Comparative | drearier |
| Superlative | dreariest |
Perifrastic
| Comparative | more dreary |
| Superlative | most dreary |
Sample Sentences
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It had rained for three days straight, and the dreary weather dragged the townspeople's spirits down.
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Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary...
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It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. [1818, Mary Shelley, chapter V, in Frankenstein, volume 1:]
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The train is booked to stop at Jiza for only three minutes, but more often than not twenty minutes or more are spent on shunting before it sets off again on what must be one of the most dreary journeys in the world. [1956 March, R. C. Blaker, “The Hedjaz Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 165:]
Adjectives inflected like dreary
snubby,
snithy,
snorty,
snoopy,
sainty,
screwy,
scowly,
schizy,
smacky,
slimsy,
slanty,
slaggy,
songly,
soothy,
shysty,
shiply,
skeezy,
beastly,
yearny,
whip-creamy, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
From Middle English drery, from Old English drēoriġ (“sad”), from Proto-West Germanic *dreuʀag, from Proto-Germanic *dreuzagaz (“bloody”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrews- (“to break, break off, crumble”), equivalent to drear + -y. Cognate with Saterland Frisian trurich (“sad, dreary”), West Frisian treurich (“sad, dreary”), Dutch treurig (“sad, gloomy”), Low German trurig (“sad”), German traurig (“sad, sorrowful, mournful”), Old Norse dreyrugr, dreyrigr (“bloody, gory”), whence Icelandic dreyrugur (“bloody”). Related to Old English drēor (“blood, falling blood”), Old English drysmian (“to become gloomy”). See: Dutch Adjectives '
treurig', German Adjectives '
traurig'.
Verbs referencing "dreary"
German Adjectives
traurig, Dutch Adjectives
treurig.