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as in sad
feeling unhappiness how can you be glum after such a great day?

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

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Synonym Chooser

How is the word glum different from other adjectives like it?

Some common synonyms of glum are crabbed, gloomy, morose, saturnine, sulky, sullen, and surly. While all these words mean "showing a forbidding or disagreeable mood," glum suggests a silent dispiritedness.

a glum candidate left to ponder a stunning defeat

When is crabbed a more appropriate choice than glum?

Although the words crabbed and glum have much in common, crabbed applies to a forbidding morose harshness of manner.

the school's notoriously crabbed headmaster

When can gloomy be used instead of glum?

In some situations, the words gloomy and glum are roughly equivalent. However, gloomy implies a depression in mood making for seeming sullenness or glumness.

a gloomy mood ushered in by bad news

How do morose and glum relate to one another?

Morose adds to glum an element of bitterness or misanthropy.

morose job seekers who are inured to rejection

When might saturnine be a better fit than glum?

While the synonyms saturnine and glum are close in meaning, saturnine describes a heavy forbidding aspect or suggests a bitter disposition.

a saturnine cynic always finding fault

When is it sensible to use sulky instead of glum?

The words sulky and glum can be used in similar contexts, but sulky suggests childish resentment expressed in peevish sullenness.

grew sulky after every spat

When would sullen be a good substitute for glum?

The meanings of sullen and glum largely overlap; however, sullen implies a silent ill humor and a refusal to be sociable.

remained sullen amid the festivities

When could surly be used to replace glum?

The synonyms surly and glum are sometimes interchangeable, but surly implies gruffness and sullenness of speech or manner.

a typical surly teenager

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of glum The New York Fed’s latest Survey of Consumer Expectations data released Monday added more glum outlooks to the growing pile of sour sentiment readings from Americans at a time when unpredictable federal policies have caused uncertainty and recession fears to spike. Alicia Wallace, CNN Money, 14 Apr. 2025 By examining lots of logical reasoning examples, the aim is that the budding AI will mathematically and computationally glum onto how to best perform logical reasoning. Lance Eliot, Forbes, 10 Mar. 2025 Give me this version of Philadelphia mayhem over the glum Long Bright River or Dope Thief any day. Daniel Fienberg, HollywoodReporter, 8 May 2025 Sometimes they’re carried along on glum motorcycle rides, meandering downriver journeys, and great leaps forward in time. Justin Chang, New Yorker, 2 May 2025 See All Example Sentences for glum
Recent Examples of Synonyms for glum
Adjective
  • The somewhat bleak outlook was laid bare Tuesday night after the USMNT was thrashed 4-0 by Switzerland during a friendly in Nashville.
    Ben Church, CNN Money, 11 June 2025
  • Instead of learning from this bleak recent history, Americans are now painfully absorbing this lesson by repeating it.
    Jonathan Haskel, Foreign Affairs, 10 June 2025
Adjective
  • Two screenshots from the video showing Ollie was a sad facial expression.
    Lucy Notarantonio, MSNBC Newsweek, 19 June 2025
  • The building directly across the street stands in sad disrepair, its windows smashed, swathed in graffiti, a front garage door hangs half-open.
    Eric Adler, Kansas City Star, 19 June 2025
Adjective
  • For all the highs that Young Thug’s performance delivered, there comes one somber realization.
    Mark P. Braboy, Rolling Stone, 23 June 2025
  • There are places where 28 Years Later is gorgeously somber, echoing the desolate lyricism of the first movie.
    Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 19 June 2025
Adjective
  • What would Georgia wear in her most depressed state?
    Hedy Phillips, People.com, 16 June 2025
  • That can put them on edge and heighten their separation anxiety, Langan said, and if their owners are depressed or grief-stricken about loss and uncertainty, the animals absorb those emotions too.
    Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times, 14 June 2025
Adjective
  • Her tone is free-associative, irritable and rat-a-tat.
    Alexandra Jacobs, New York Times, 1 June 2025
  • When an owner is distracted or irritable from work stress, the dog notices.
    Jasmine Baehr, FOXNews.com, 25 May 2025
Adjective
  • On social media, there’s a certain kind of influencer who specializes in attracting lonely, unhappy people by brandishing mantras and principles that will allegedly lead them to more fulfilled and successful lives.
    Jia Tolentino, New Yorker, 23 June 2025
  • Over in her Hawaiian home land, 19-year-old Nani (Tia Carrere) has been trying her best to fend for herself and her lonely little sister Lilo (beautifully voiced by young Daveigh Chase) in the absence of their parents.
    Michael Rechtshaffen, HollywoodReporter, 22 June 2025
Adjective
  • The root of the fallout was the Who (and specifically Daltrey) being unhappy with Starkey’s performance when the band played a pair of Teenage Cancer Trust charity shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall in March.
    Daniel Kreps, Rolling Stone, 22 June 2025
  • On Friday, Devers alluded to being unhappy with how the Red Sox treated him.
    Gabrielle Starr, Boston Herald, 20 June 2025
Adjective
  • Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the blackest of the heath for her; out of a sullen hollow in a livid hillside her mind could make an Eden.
    Erik Pedersen, Oc Register, 6 June 2025
  • When this long, difficult, rewarding and validating Minnesota Timberwolves season came to a crashing halt Wednesday in Oklahoma City, a sullen group of players and coaches filed into the locker room to come to grips with it all.
    Jon Krawczynski, New York Times, 30 May 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Glum.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/glum. Accessed 28 Jun. 2025.

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