glum

See also: Glum and glüm

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡlʌm/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌm

Etymology 1

Probably from Middle Low German glum (“glum”), related to German dialectal glumm (“gloomy, troubled, turbid”). More at gloomy.

Adjective

glum (comparative glummer, superlative glummest)

1. Despondent; moody; sullen.
   • 1857–1859, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, The Virginians. A Tale of the Last Century, volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1858–1859, →OCLC:

     I […] frighten people by my glum face.

   • 1959, Mordecai Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz:

     […] and the prospect of three more days of teaching before the weekend break, Mr. MacPherson felt unusually glum.

   • 1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 23:

     A glummer look replaced the already glum look on Arthur Dent's face.

   • 2024 June 28, Mark Walsh, “Consider the wild gray squirrel, Kagan rebukes her colleagues as court overrules Chevron”, in SCOTUSblog:

     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.

Translations

despondent

Bulgarian: навъсен (bg) (navǎsen), намръщен (bg) (namrǎšten) Czech: zasmušilý, zachmuřený, rozmrzelý (cs) Dutch: sip (nl) Finnish: synkkä (fi), vakava (fi), juro (fi) French: morose (fr) German: bedrückt (de), niedergeschlagen (de), verdrießlich (de), trist (de), mürrisch (de), deprimiert (de), trostlos (de), dunkel (de), missmutig (de) Hungarian: rosszkedvű (hu), mogorva (hu), komor (hu), morcos (hu), morózus (hu), savanyú (hu), borús (hu) Irish: púiceach, púiciúil Korean: 침울(沈鬱)하다 (chimulhada) Maori: poururu Norman: ponseux Norwegian: tungsindig Russian: печальный (ru) (pečalʹnyj) Scottish Gaelic: gruamach Spanish: decaído (es) m, taciturno (es) m, morugo m Swedish: dyster (sv), trumpen (sv)

Etymology 2

From Middle English glomen, glommen, glomben, gloumben (“to frown, look sullen”), from *glom (“gloom”). More at gloom. The noun is from Middle English glome, from the verb.^[1]

Verb

glum (third-person singular simple present glums, present participle glumming, simple past and past participle glummed)

1. (obsolete) To look sullen; to be of a sour countenance; to be glum.
   • 1509, Stephen Hawes, The Passetyme of Pleasure:

     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

Noun

glum (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) sullenness
   • c. 1550, John Skelton, Colyn Cloute:

     That they be deaf and dumb,
     And play silence and glum

References

1. “glum, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Swedish

Verb

glum

1. (Internet slang, humorous) Deliberate misspelling of glömde (“forgot”); forgor

   Jag glum 💀

   I forgor 💀