English

Adjective

sombrous ‎(comparative more sombrous, superlative most sombrous)

1. Gloomy; sombre.
   • 1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ‘Prelude’:

     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.

   • 2001, Anthea Bell, translating WG Sebald, Austerlitz, Penguin 2011, p. 2:

     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.

Related terms

• sombrously
• sombrousness