dismal

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• adjective Causing gloom or depression; dreary.
• adjective Characterized by ineptitude, dullness, or a lack of merit.
• adjective Obsolete Dreadful; disastrous.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To feel dismal or melancholy.
• noun plural The blues; the dumps; a state of gloominess or despondency: as, to be in the dismals.
• Gloomy; dreary; cheerless; melancholy; doleful; dolorous: originally, as an adjective, in the phrase dismal day or dismal days (see etymology), whence it was extended to any visible physical surroundings, or anything perceived or apprehended, tending to depress or chill the spirits.
• noun See extract and etymology.
• noun Gloom; melancholy; dumps: usually in the plural, in the phrase in the dismals.
• noun plural Mourning-garments.
• noun A name given in the southern Atlantic States, in the region bordering on the sea and sounds, and especially in North Carolina, to a tract of land, swampy in character, often covered by a considerable thickness of half-decayed wood and saturated with water.
• noun The devil.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• adjective obsolete Fatal; ill-omened; unlucky.
• adjective Gloomy to the eye or ear; sorrowful and depressing to the feelings; foreboding; cheerless; dull; dreary

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• adjective Disappointingly inadequate.
• adjective Gloomy and bleak.
• adjective Depressing.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• adjective causing dejection