SOMBER

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does somber mean? 

• SOMBER (adjective)
  The adjective SOMBER has 2 senses:

1. lacking brightness or color; dull

2. grave or even gloomy in character

  Familiarity information: SOMBER used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SOMBER (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lacking brightness or color; dull

Synonyms:

drab; sober; somber; sombre

Context example:

children in somber brown clothes

Similar:

colorless; colourless (weak in color; not colorful)

Derivation:

somberness (a state of partial or total darkness)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Grave or even gloomy in character

Synonyms:

melancholy; somber; sombre

Context example:

a somber mood

Similar:

cheerless; depressing; uncheerful (causing sad feelings of gloom and inadequacy)

Derivation:

somberness (a manner that is serious and solemn)

somberness (a feeling of melancholy apprehension)

 Context examples 

Meg admired the tragedy, so Jo piled up the agony to suit her, while Amy objected to the fun, and, with the best intentions in life, Jo quenched the spritly scenes which relieved the somber character of the story.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Climbing plants are monstrous and luxuriant, but others which have never been known to climb elsewhere learn the art as an escape from that somber shadow, so that the common nettle, the jasmine, and even the jacitara palm tree can be seen circling the stems of the cedars and striving to reach their crowns.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Beyond sat a pair of humble lovers, artlessly holding each other by the hand, a somber spinster eating peppermints out of a paper bag, and an old gentleman taking his preparatory nap behind a yellow bandanna.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips of south-eastern Europe, and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby's splendid car was included in their somber holiday.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)