DISMAL

dismal, an adjective meaning dreary, gloomy, and so a name given to stretches of swampy land on the east coast of the united states, as the dismal swamp in virginia and north carolina. the derivation has been much discussed. in the early examples of the use the word is a substantive, especially in the expression "in the dismal," i.e. in the dismal time or days. later it became adjectival, especially in combination with "days." it has been connected with "decimal," med. latin _decimalis_, belonging to a tithe or tenth, and thus the "dismal days" are the unpleasant days connected with the extortion and oppression of exacting payment of tithes. according to the _new english dictionary_, quoting professor w. w. skeat, "dismal" is derived, through an anglo-fr. _dis mal_, from the lat. _dies mali_, evil or unpropitious days. this anglo-french expression, explained as _les mal jours_, is found in a ms. of rauf de linham's _art de kalender_, 1256. these days of evil omen were known as _dies aegyptiaci_ (du cange, _glossarium_, s.v.) or egyptian days, either as having been instituted by egyptian astrologers or with reference to the "ten plagues"; so chaucer, "i trowe hit was in the dismal, that were the ten woundes of egipte" (_book of the duchesse_, 1206). there were two such days in each month. see skeat, trans. _philol. soc._ (1888), p. 2, and note on the line in the "book of the duchesse," _the complete works of geoffrey chaucer_, vol. i. (1894).