“dismal”
“The play was a great success, but audience was a dismal failure.”
“The winter will be long and bleak. Nature has a dismal aspect.”
“It's the tide. It's the dismal tide. It's not the one thing.”
“We're dismal enough without conjuring up ghosts and visions to perplex us.”
“My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers.”