Etymologically
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gloom

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ɡluːm/[1]
  • US: /ɡlum/[1]

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English gloumen, also gloumben and glomen,[2][3][4][5] and its origin is unknown.[6][7][8][4] According to the OED it is inherited from Old English *glūmian, an unrecorded verb, and it compares related Middle and Low German words meaning muddy or turbid.[9] Merriam-Webster compares Middle High German beglūmen (“to make turbid, deceive”) and the Norwegian dialect word glome (“to stare somberly and suspiciously”),[5] which the MED and Barnhart take as a sign of a Scandinavian origin;[2][3][4] Klein relates it to Middle Low German glum (“turbid”) and Dutch gluren (“to leer”), and to glower and glum.[10][4] Several dictionaries say it is not related to Old English glōm (“twilight”), the source of gloaming.[10][9][4][11] The noun comes from the verb in its first sense, a sullen look, but in the senses "darkness" and "melancholy" it is probably a back-formation from gloomy.[9][6][8][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To look sullen or displeased, to frown or scowl: about 1400, in the poem Patience, composed about 1380.[9][2] Barnhart finds the verb implied about 1300 in glouminge, scowling.[3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the verb was also used of the weather or the sky, to become dark and threatening (before 1400).[9][2] The earliest evidence is mostly northern,[8] and the noun first appears in Scots, in 1596, as "a sullen look, a frown".[9][3][4] The sense "darkness, obscurity" may be Milton's creation: the OED found it nine times in his poems and nowhere else at first, starting with the hymn On the Morning of Christ's Nativity,[9] written in 1629 and printed in 1645.[3][4][9] Weekley thought Milton took it from the verb as used of a lowering sky.[11] Johnson (1755) gave "imperfect darkness" as the first sense of the noun.[12] The sense "melancholy, depression" followed in 1744,[9][3][4] although the adjective gloomy had a corresponding sense from 1590, in Marlowe's Edward II.[3][4] The phrase gloom and doom, or doom and gloom, pessimism about the future, comes from the musical Finian's Rainbow (1947).[9] In Scots and northern dialects gloom still meant to grow dark and to look sullen or scowl in the 19th century, and in Cornwall the noun meant fog.[13] In American slang a gloom is a depressed or depressing person.[14]

Timeline

  • c. 1300 – implied in glouminge, scowling.[3]
  • c. 1400 – verb, to look sullen, frown.[9][2]
  • before 1400 – of the sky, to become dark, lower.[9][2]
  • 1577 – verb, to make dark or sombre.[9]
  • 1596 – noun, in Scots, a sullen look.[9][3][5]
  • 1645 – darkness, obscurity, in Milton.[9] Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1629, when the poem was written.[3][4]
  • 1707 – a dark or shaded place.[9]
  • 1744 – a state of melancholy or depression.[9][3][4]
  • 1947 – gloom and doom.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Partial or total darkness: the gloom of the forest at dusk.[15][5][9]
  2. A state of melancholy or depression; low spirits.[15][9]
  3. A sad or despondent look or appearance.[15][9]
  4. (poetic) A dim or dark place.[15][9]
  5. (chiefly Scottish) A sullen look; a scowl.[5][6][9]

Verb

  1. To look or act sullen or depressed: He gloomed over his coffee all morning.[15][5][9]
  2. Of the sky or weather, to become dark or threatening.[9][2]
  3. To make or become dark or gloomy.[15][9]

Word family

  • gloomful
  • gloomfully
  • gloomless
  • gloomy
  • outgloom
  • undergloom
  • gloam
  • glum
  • glower
  • gloaming

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  14. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  15. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins