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gloom

noun · verb

Simple meaning

A depressing, despondent, or melancholic atmosphere.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

gloom
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈɡlum

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A depressing, despondent, or melancholic atmosphere.

  2. Cloudiness or heaviness of mind; melancholy; aspect of sorrow; low spirits; dullness.

  3. Darkness, dimness, or obscurity.

  4. A drying oven used in gunpowder manufacture.

verb

  1. intransitive

    To look or feel sad, sullen or despondent.

  2. To shine or appear obscurely or imperfectly; to glimmer.

  3. transitive

    To render gloomy or dark; to obscure; to darken.

  4. transitive

    To fill with gloom; to make sad, dismal, or sullen.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon
Formality
Technical

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A depressing, despondent, or melancholic atmosphere.

Used this way, gloom is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This sense is used where position and measurement matter — travel, weather and flight — so it reads as factual rather than emotive.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Geography/travel
  • Weather/aviation
  • Technical/specialist writing

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use gloom

  • “He struck a match to dispel the gloom.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

deep gloomgathering gloomgeneral gloomdeepening gloom

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.