sombre

1. 1.

   lacking brightness or color; dull

   “drab faded curtains”

   “sober Puritan grey”

   “children in somber brown clothes”

   Synonymsdrabsobersomber

   Similarcolorless
2. 2.

   grave or even gloomy in character

   “solemn and mournful music”

   “a suit of somber black”

   “a somber mood”

   Synonymssombermelancholy

   Similardepressing

Other forms of sombre

comparative

sombrer·

superlative

sombrest·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about sombre

What does sombre mean?

sombre means "lacking brightness or color; dull". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in sombre?

sombre has 1 syllable: sombre.

What is another word for sombre?

Close synonyms include drab, sober, somber, somber, melancholy. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is sombre a common word?

sombre is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.