Grim determination.
Grim necessity.
Russia's final hour, it seemed, approached with inexorable certainty.
Relentless persecution.
The stern demands of parenthood.

Ghastly wounds.
The grim aftermath of the bombing.
The grim task of burying the victims.
A grisly murder.
Gruesome evidence of human sacrifice.
Macabre tales of war and plague in the Middle ages.
Macabre tortures conceived by madmen.

Black humor.
A grim joke.
Grim laughter.
Fun ranging from slapstick clowning ... to savage mordant wit.

A dour, self-sacrificing life.
A forbidding scowl.
A grim man loving duty more than humanity.
Undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw.

Gloomy at the thought of what he had to face.
Gloomy predictions.
A gloomy silence.
Took a grim view of the economy.
The darkening mood.
Lonely and blue in a strange city.
Depressed by the loss of his job.
A dispirited and resigned expression on her face.
Downcast after his defeat.
Feeling discouraged and downhearted.

A blue day.
The dark days of the war.
A week of rainy depressing weather.
A disconsolate winter landscape.
The first dismal dispiriting days of November.
A dark gloomy day.
Grim rainy weather.