sombre

Borrowed from French sombre (“dark”), from Old French sombre, from a verb *sombrer or Latin sub- + umbra. Compare Spanish sombra (“shade; dark part of a picture; ghost”).[1][2]

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɒmbəɹ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒmbə(ɹ)

sombre (comparative sombrer, superlative sombrest) (Britain, Canada)

1. Dark; gloomy; shadowy, dimly lit.
   • 2015, Hermann Kauders, Before The Cock Crows (→ISBN), page 9:

     The lady led him into a sombre hallway and disappeared. A moment later the windowless chamber was illuminated by the entry of a heavenly creature emitting a radiance prone to pierce the heart of any youth exposed to it.

2. Dull or dark in colour or brightness.
   • 1877, The Black Band; or, The Mysteries of Midnight, page 47:

     His tall and slender figure, dressed in sombre black, his hair of that peculiar reddish auburn so rarely seen, his flashing black eyes, in which a fitful fire seemed for ever burning; all combined to give something almost of a demoniac air ...

3. Melancholy, gloomy, dreary, dismal; grim.
   • Beaconsfield

     The dinner was silent and sombre; happily it was also short.

   • 2012, Peter Turnbull, Aftermath, Severn House Publishers Ltd (→ISBN)

     A sombre mood, very sombre in fact, thought Hennessey, as he stood against the wall observing the procedure for the police. He had not known a mood more sombre to have previously descended on the room.

4. Grave; extremely serious.

   a sombre situation

• somber (US)

• melancholy
• dreary
• dire
• dismal

sombre (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) Gloom; obscurity; duskiness.

sombre (third-person singular simple present sombres, present participle sombring, simple past and past participle sombred)

1. To make sombre or dark; to make shady.

• sombre in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• bromes, ombres, somber

From Old French sombre, from a verb *sombrer (from a Vulgar Latin *subumbrāre), or from Latin sub + umbra. Cf. also Spanish and Portuguese sombra (“shadow”), likely with influence from sol (“sun”). See also Old French essombre, with a different prefix.

• IPA^(key): /sɔ̃bʁ/

• audio

  (file)

sombre (plural sombres)

1. dark

• foncé
• obscur

• clair

sombre

1. first-person singular present indicative of sombrer
2. third-person singular present indicative of sombrer
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of sombrer
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of sombrer
5. second-person singular imperative of sombrer

• “sombre” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• ombres

From Old French sombre, from a verb *sombrer (from a Vulgar Latin *subumbrāre), or from Latin sub (“under”) + umbra (“shadow”).

sombre m or f

1. (Jersey) sombre, dark

sombre

1. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of sombrar.
2. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of sombrar.
3. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of sombrar.
4. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of sombrar.