From Middle English *gloom, *glom, from Old English glōm, from Proto-West Germanic *glōm, from Proto-Germanic *glōmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰley-.

• (RP) IPA: /ɡluːm/
• (America) IPA: /ɡlum/

gloom (uncountable)

1. Darkness, dimness, or obscurity.

   the gloom of a forest, or of midnight

   • [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC ↗:

     Here was a surprise, and a sad one for me, for I perceived that I had slept away a day, and that the sun was setting for another night. And yet it mattered little, for night or daytime there was no light to help me in this horrible place; and though my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom, I could make out nothing to show me where to work.

2. A depressing, despondent, or melancholic atmosphere.
   • 1855, Robert Browning, “‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.’”, in Men and Women […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC ↗, stanza 19, page 142 ↗:

     A sudden little river crossed my path / As unexpected as a serpent comes. / No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms— / This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath / For the fiend's glowing hoof—to see the wrath / Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.

3. Cloudiness or heaviness of mind; melancholy; aspect of sorrow; low spirits; dullness.
   • 1770, Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents:

     A sullen gloom and furious disorder prevailed by fits.

4. A drying oven used in gunpowder manufacture.

• gloam

• French: obscurité, pénombre, grisaille
• German: Düsternis, Dunkelheit
• Italian: oscurità, tenebre, buio
• Portuguese: trevas, escuridão, escuro
• Russian: тьма
• Spanish: penumbra

• French: morosité, noirceur, (dated) sombreur
• German: Trübnis
• Italian: depressione, tristezza
• Portuguese: trevas, melancolia, tristeza
• Russian: уны́ние
• Spanish: tristeza

• French: morosité
• German: Schwermut, Melancholie, Niedergeschlagenheit
• Spanish: melancolía

gloom (glooms, present participle glooming; simple past and past participle gloomed)

1. (intransitive) To be dark or gloomy.
   • 1770, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, a Poem, London: […] W[illiam] Griffin, […], →OCLC ↗, page 17 ↗:

     Here, while the proud their long drawn pomps diſplay, / There the black gibbet glooms beſide the way.

2. (intransitive) To look or feel sad, sullen or despondent.
   • a. 1930, D. H. Lawrence, The Lovely Lady:

     Ciss was a big, dark-complexioned, pug-faced young woman who seemed to be glooming about something.

   • 1904 November 10, Henry James, chapter XVI, in The Golden Bowl, volume I, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, →OCLC ↗, book first (The Prince), part third, page 283 ↗:

     "Is Maggie then astonishing too?"—and he gloomed out of his window.

   • 1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1965, →OCLC ↗, page 85:

     He gloomed for some moments above the round-topped table[.]

3. (transitive) To render gloomy or dark; to obscure; to darken.
   • 1855, Alfred Tennyson, “The Letters”, in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC ↗, page 115 ↗:

     A black yew gloom'd the stagnant air.

4. (transitive) To fill with gloom; to make sad, dismal, or sullen.
   • 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Vivien”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC ↗, page 110 ↗:

     For see you not, dear love, / Such a mood as that, which lately gloom'd / Your fancy when you saw me following you, / Must make me fear still more you are not mine, […]

   • 1770, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, a Poem, London: […] W[illiam] Griffin, […], →OCLC ↗, page 20 ↗:

     Good Heaven! What ſorrows gloom'd that parting day, / That called them from their native walks away; […]

5. To shine or appear obscurely or imperfectly; to glimmer.