Definition of "sombrous" [som•brous]

• Archaic Somber in aspect or in character: "where . . . the sombrous pine/And yew-tree o'er the silver rocks decline” ( William Wordsworth). (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The sombrous and heavy sound of the billows, successively dashing against the rocky beach at a profound distance beneath, was to the ear what the landscape was to the eye — a symbol of unvaried and monotonous melancholy, not unmingled with horror."
• "The sullen hills were flanked with light, and the valleys chined with shadow, and all the sombrous moors between awoke in furrowed anger."
• "I now went down a gentle declivity the delightful park of Windsor at the foot of which it looks so sombrous and gloomy that I could not help fancying it was some vast Gothic old temple."