Word of the Day Archive
Wednesday December 18, 2002

lugubrious \lu-GOO-bree-us; -GYOO-\ , adjective:
Mournful, dismal, or gloomy, esp. in an affected, exaggerated, or unrelieved manner.

Oh yes, he says, and his lugubrious expression suggests that the loss afflicts him still.
-- Mary Riddell, New Statesman, September 19, 1997

His patriarchy often seemed lugubrious; he would often have tears in his eyes when elucidating all my failings.
-- Richard Elman, Namedropping: Mostly Literary Memoirs

Previous visits hadn't yielded this art-after-death aura, which had everything to do with two installations on display, work so lugubrious it cast a pall over . . . well, just over me, but dark clouds hovered above the city, and the gloomy weather might as well have emanated from the art.
-- Bernard Cooper, "The Uses of the Ghoulish", Los Angeles Magazine, February 2001

Get Word of the Day on your iPhone or iPod touch »


Download the FREE Dictionary.com app

Lugubrious comes from Latin lugubris, from lugere, to mourn.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for lugubrious

 

AddThis:  AddThis: del.icio.usAddThis: digg.comAddThis: FacebookAddThis: furl.netAddThis: www.netscape.comAddThis: myweb2.search.yahoo.comAddThis: www.stumbleupon.comAddThis: www.google.comAddThis: www.technorati.comAddThis: blinklist.comAddThis: newsvine.comAddThis: ma.gnolia.comAddThis: reddit.comAddThis: favorites.live.com