Literary notes about dreary (AI summary)
Literary authors deploy the word dreary to evoke a pervasive sense of gloom and desolation that can inhabit both physical settings and inner states of mind. It is often used to characterize barren landscapes and oppressive interiors—a forlorn estate on the horizon [1], a shadowed moorland full of silent despair [2], or a bleak dwelling devoid of warmth [3]. At times, the term mirrors personal sorrow or the monotony of existence, embodying the characters' inner melancholy and the crushing weight of isolation [4, 5]. Equally, dreary accentuates the grim ambiance of mythic or ruined realms, transforming settings into vast, loveless expanses where hope seems almost extinct [6].
- Passangun could be perceived in the distance, and a dreary, desolate place it was when one got there.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - At every rise Holmes looked eagerly round him, but the shadows were thick upon the moor, and nothing moved upon its dreary face.
— from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle - It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices.
— from A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens - A dreary, melancholy settled down upon her.
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner - Until now, agonizing retrospect, and dreary prospects for the future, had stung me when awake, and cradled me to my repose.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Range the dark bounds of Pluto's dreary reign.
— from The Odyssey by Homer
