Definition of "gloom"

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.

1898, J. Meade Falkner, chapter 4, in Moonfleet, London, Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934

On December 13, Maritime-liveried 66051 powers out of the early morning gloom with three repatriated Class 66s, on the 0809 Dollands Moor Sidings-Scunthorpe Redbourne Siding.

2022 January 12, “News in pictures: Repatriated '66s' return home”, in RAIL, number 948, page 20

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.

1855, Robert Browning, “‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.’”, in Men and Women […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], stanza 19, page 142

Although it's always crowdedYou still can find some roomFor broken-hearted loversTo cry there in their gloom.

1956, “Heartbreak Hotel”, Mae Boren Axton, Tommy Durden, Elvis Presley (lyrics), performed by Elvis Presley

A sullen gloom and furious disorder prevailed by fits.

1770, Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

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

1770, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, a Poem, London: […] W. Griffin, […], page 17

Around all the dark forest gloomed.

1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country, Nebraska, published 2005, page 189

Her face gathers, furrows, glooms; arching eyebrows wrinkle into horizontals, and a tinge of bitterness unsmooths the cheek and robs the lip of sweetened grace. She is evidently perturbed.

1882, W. Marshall, Strange Chapman, volume 2, page 170

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

a. 1930, D. H. Lawrence, The Lovely Lady

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

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

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

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

A black yew gloom'd the stagnant air.

1855, Alfred Tennyson, “The Letters”, in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], page 115

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, […]

1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Vivien”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], page 110

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

1770, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, a Poem, London: […] W. Griffin, […], page 20