sombreness BrE
somberness AmE

But despite the auspiciousness of the morning, there was no doubting its sombreness.

There was a sort of sombreness in the afternoon, which fitted in with his mood.

His mood changed like quicksilver, the sombreness vanishing as if it had never been there.

His expression gave no sign of yielding to the request; on the contrary, its sombreness deepened.

Winkler was glad of the sombreness of the place, and the silence.

There was an unpleasant sombreness about the station: not so much shock as a tentative uncertainty about how to react.

I noticed that his sardonic expression gradually disappeared, and that in its place came a look of calculating sombreness.

The stimulus of Nelson's letter and the Admiral's kindness had long since died away; sombreness had returned.

Their circumstances were too grievous, and in sombreness their inner life matched their outer estate.

The chamber was partly panelled in oak, partly hung with old tapestries, and this added to its sombreness.

The English artists in particular attracted him, he said, 'because of their Monday-morning-like sombreness and studied simplicity.'

The sombreness of the movement is underlined by the final cadence on the lowest strings of the violins and violas.

He was dressed in black, his hair, of a nondescript blonde shade and his crumpled linen alone told light in the general sombreness of his appearance.

The ruins were a blotch of bright colour in the general sombreness, spilling in violent reds and yellows, strident greens and blues.

It has been credited with restoring the holiday to one of merriment and festivity in Britain and America after a period of sobriety and sombreness.

This sombreness was not accompanied by any lack of conduct; Aubrey had far too strong a sense of duty to his ship to be anything but exact and punctilious.

Her golden tan, the gloss of her jet hair and the brightness of her blue eyes were enough to lift the sombreness of the outfit to designer chic.

Despite the jocularity of his words, there was an unwonted sombreness in his face and a worried look in his eyes, which belied the manner of his greeting.

Back at the hotel in the tiny hours, Paul Heaton has overcome his post-gig sombreness ('It was rubbish,' he claims) and is surrounded by his own Sunday League friends.

When the facility was finally opened in January 1939 by Lord Horder, the then Physician to the King, he said: "You seem to have eliminated the sombreness of atmosphere which sometimes shrouds buildings such as these".

Fauré did not, but according to his biographer Jessica Duchen, his music acquired "a new sombreness, a dark-hued sense of tragedy ... evident mainly in his songs of this period including L'Absent, Seule!

Variety called it "pretty fair entertainment . . . steered clear of over sombreness or becoming too morbid" and added, "Just when it threatens to become banal, excellent trouping and some inspired dialoguing snap it back into proper gait."

They were punished together by the priest in black in the crypt of the French Catholic church in Leicester Square, its sombreness relieved only by Jean Cocteau's androgynous wall-paintings; they were allowed no flowers and no music.

In fact, the war gave him a new sombreness of attitude to match his stark experience of the "essential problems of life" ; and inevitably this sombreness communicated itself to his continued thinking about the problems of tragedy.

The idleness of a passenger, my isolation amongst all these men with whom I had no point of contact, the oily and languid sea, the uniform sombreness of the coast, seemed to keep me away from the truth of things, within the toil of a mournful and senseless delusion.

For all its somberness, the individual stories are extremely entertaining.

Even in the somberness of this time, however, Hemingway offers hope.

The somberness lies in the approach; space flight is dangerous.

I guess my somberness drives everyone away in the end,' he said sadly.

Then she looked at the pictures, which outside of their somberness seemed unremarkable to me.

Despite the somberness of the light, Harry recognized the newcomer.

Ashe appeared to have lost some of his somberness since they had left the ship.

Clouded evening had brought a somberness to the entire countryside.

This year there was no escaping the somberness that hung over most of today's sessions.

So much for trying to jolly her out of her somberness.

Emotional attributes of the dances include both somberness and joy.

Their all-over somberness is a reaction to the war in Vietnam.

He smiled briefly, without humor, and then his face relaxed into somberness.

As for himself, while he had his youth, he was not going to waste it on too much somberness.

A black cape was brought out and thrown about his shoulders, which seemed to fit exactly into the somberness of the picture.

The whole effect was one of calculated somberness.

Instead, the night sky lent him a feeling of somberness, of dark threat.

He stared at the screen with a strange mixture of somberness and reverie.

But it wasn't the black and silver somberness of the room that bothered Raven.

An odd mix, though, a skim of ebullience over somberness.

This afternoon, there was a hush and a somberness among adults and children who could not quite believe what had happened.

Today, the mood among the remaining fashion flock is a mix of nervousness and somberness.

The design, with its crisp, snappy look, is a refreshing way to lighten up the somberness of all black.

Riker looked at the smiling face and detected the somberness behind it.