sombre - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Borrowed from French sombre (“dark”), from Old French sombre, from a verb *sombrer or Latin sub- +‎ umbra. Compare Spanish sombra (“shade; dark part of a picture; ghost”).[1][2]

sombre (comparative sombrer, superlative sombrest) (British spelling, Canadian spelling)

  1. Dark; gloomy; shadowy, dimly lit.
    Synonyms: bleak, dreary; see also Thesaurus:cheerless
    • 2015, Hermann Kauders, Before The Cock Crows, →ISBN, page 9:
      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.
    • 1955 July, D. S. Barrie, “Railways of the Bridgend District”, in Railway Magazine, page 449:
      All three parallel valleys of the Llynvi, Garw and Ogmore are much the same in physical character: the lower reaches are wooded and not unattractive, but as the railway climbs on ever-steepening grades, the hills on either hand grow barer and closer together, while in all respects the scene becomes more sombre, with the terraced, slate-roofed colliery towns and the road, railway and river all struggling for space in the narrowing defiles.
  2. Dull or dark in colour or brightness.
    Synonyms: fuscous, inky; see also Thesaurus:dark, Thesaurus:dark colour
    • 1877, The Black Band; or, The Mysteries of Midnight, page 47:
      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 ...
  3. Melancholic, gloomy, dreary, dismal; grim.
    Synonyms: despondent, unhappy; see also Thesaurus:sad
    • 1904 January 29 – October 7, Joseph Conrad, Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard, London; New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers […], published 1904, →OCLC:
      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.
    • 2012, Peter Turnbull, Aftermath, Severn House Publishers Ltd, →ISBN:
      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.
  4. Grave; extremely serious.
    Synonyms: earnest, staid; see also Thesaurus:serious
    a sombre situation

dark; gloomy, dimly lit

dull or dark in colour

melancholic; dismal

grave — see also grave

sombre (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) Gloom; obscurity; duskiness.

sombre (third-person singular simple present sombres, present participle sombring, simple past and past participle sombred)

  1. To make sombre or dark; to make shady.

  2. ^ “sombre”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

  3. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “sombre”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Inherited from Old French sombre, likely from Latin sub umbra (“in/under the shade”); compare Spanish and Portuguese sombra (“shade, shadow”). Possibly derived through a verb *sombrer, from a Vulgar Latin *subumbrāre (“to shade, enshadow”), though this does not seem necessary. Compare also Old French essombre, with a different prefix.

sombre (plural sombres)

  1. dark
    Synonyms: foncé, obscur
    Antonym: clair
  2. (derogatory) right, damn, bloody
    un sombre crétin ― a prize idiot, a complete idiot, an unspeakable imbecile

sombre

  1. inflection of sombrer:
    1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
    2. second-person singular imperative

From Old French sombre, from a verb *sombrer (from a Vulgar Latin *subumbrāre), or from Latin sub (“under”) + umbra (“shadow”).

sombre m or f

  1. (Jersey) sombre, dark

sombre

  1. inflection of sombrar:
    1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
    2. third-person singular imperative