Glum Meaning
/ɡlʌm/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
adjDespondent; moody; sullen.
verbTo look sullen; to be of a sour countenance; to be glum.
Sentence Examples
Don't be so glum about it. Life has its ups and downs.
Why are you so glum?
Tom asked Mary why she'd been so glum lately.
CEFR Practice Quiz
After losing the championship game, the team captain looked very ____.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He looked very ____ after hearing the news that his favorite team had lost the championship game yet again.
Word Origin & History
Probably from Middle Low German glum (“glum”), related to German dialectal glumm (“gloomy, troubled, turbid”). More at gloomy.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"I[…]frighten people by my glum face."
— 1857–1859, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, The Virginians. A Tale of the Last Century, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1858–1859, →OCLC:
"[…] and the prospect of three more days of teaching before the weekend break, Mr. MacPherson felt unusually glum."
— 1959, Mordecai Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz:
"A glummer look replaced the already glum look on Arthur Dent's face."
— 1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 23:
"U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who had sought to save Chevron during hours of argument in January, looks slightly glum in her seat at the counsel tables."
— 2024 June 28, Mark Walsh, “Consider the wild gray squirrel, Kagan rebukes her colleagues as court overrules Chevron”, in SCOTUSblog:
"upon me he gan to loure and glum,
Enforcing him so for to ryse withall,
But that I shortly unto hem did cum,
With his thre hedes he spytte all his venum"
— 1509, Stephen Hawes, The Passetyme of Pleasure:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
After losing the championship game, the team captain looked very ____.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He looked very ____ after hearing the news that his favorite team had lost the championship game yet again.