Sometimes, the history of a word embodies the meaning it has taken on over time. This is the case with the word dreary.
When I think of a dreary emotion, I think of how it feels to face a drab, bleak landscape, or a situation devoid of warmth. It’s not really the same thing as being bored, which is the feeling that nothing around us is worthy of our interest. While boredom is an emotional assessment of the quality of the external world, dreariness is the feeling that the world has been drained of all vivid quality, both within and without. Feeling dreary is like having the colors of one’s emotional life fade away into grayscale.
That’s not what the word dreary used to mean. It originated as dreor, an Old English word that referred to the horrific quality of something dripping with blood. It used to be that when something was dreary, it terrifying, sickening, provoking dread or a desire for vengeance. The emotion was as powerful as the sight of blood erupting from a human body. It was colorful. Dreary was dangerous and cruel.
For many generations, this original meaning has been obsolete. People now think of being dreary as something akin to being drained of powerful emotions, like being drained of blood. The connection to blood is still present, but the emotional story of dreariness has shifted forward in time to the aftermath of bloodshed, when our passions have flowed away, leaving us emotionally anemic.
