dismal

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
dismal /ˈdɪzm(ə)l/

▶adjective

• 1 causing or showing gloom or depression; dreary.

• 2 informal pitifully or disgracefully bad: a dismal performance.

– phrases
the dismal science humorous economics.

– derivatives
dismally adverb,
dismalness noun.

– origin ME: from earlier dismals, the two days in each month which in medieval times were believed to be unlucky, from Anglo-Norman Fr. dis mal, from med. L. dies mali ‘evil days’.