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comparative sombrer, superlative sombrest
Dark; gloomy; shadowy, dimly lit. quotations examples
The lady led him into a sombre hallway and disappeared. A moment later the windowless chamber was illuminated by the entry of a heavenly creature emitting a radiance prone to pierce the heart of any youth exposed to it.
2015, Hermann Kauders, Before The Cock Crows, page 9
Dull or dark in colour or brightness. quotations examples
His tall and slender figure, dressed in sombre black, his hair of that peculiar reddish auburn so rarely seen, his flashing black eyes, in which a fitful fire seemed for ever burning; all combined to give something almost of a demoniac air ...
1877, The Black Band; or, The Mysteries of Midnight, page 47
Melancholic, gloomy, dreary, dismal; grim. quotations examples
The dinner was silent and sombre; happily it was also short.
1845, B[enjamin] Disraeli, Sybil; or The Two Nations. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Henry Colburn, […]
It was a wonder that he had not been a victim of the ferocious and summary executions which marked the course of that tyranny; for Guzman had ruled the country with the sombre imbecility of political fanaticism.
1904 January 29 – October 7, Joseph Conrad, Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard, London, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers […], published 1904
A sombre mood, very sombre in fact, thought Hennessey, as he stood against the wall observing the procedure for the police. He had not known a mood more sombre to have previously descended on the room.
2012, Peter Turnbull, Aftermath, Severn House Publishers Ltd
Grave; extremely serious. examples
uncountable
(obsolete) Gloom; obscurity; duskiness.
third-person singular simple present sombres, present participle sombring, simple past and past participle sombred
To make sombre or dark; to make shady. examples