dreary (DRIR-ee) adjective

   1. Dismal; bleak.

   2. Boring; dull.

[Middle English dreri, bloody, frightened, sad, from Old English dreorig,
bloody, sad, from dreor, gore.]

   "Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
   Where knowledge is free
   Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
   By narrow domestic walls
   Where words come out from the depth of truth
   Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
   Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
   Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
   Where the mind is led forward by thee
   Into ever-widening thought and action
   Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."
   Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali.

This week's theme: words from poetry.

............................................................................
Appreciation is a wonderful thing; it makes what is excellent in others
belong to us as well. -Voltaire, philosopher, historian, satirist,
dramatist, and essayist (1694-1778)

Announcing online chat at Wordsmith. Our first guest will be John Simpson,
Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) on Tuesday, December 19,
2000 at 4 PM GMT (11 AM EST U.S.). More details at http://wordsmith.org/chat
If you plan to attend the chat, please drop us a line at rsvp@wordsmith.org.

Pronunciation:
http://wordsmith.org/words/dreary.wav
http://wordsmith.org/words/dreary.ram