1. He took courses to remedy his abysmal ignorance.

2. Extremely or hopelessly bad or severe: abysmal ignorance; Abysmal poverty.

3. Examples of Abysmal in a Sentence They were living in Abysmal ignorance

4. Weakened sense of "extremely bad" is first recorded 1904, perhaps from Abysmal ignorance (suggestive of its "depth"), an expression attested from 1847

5. Weakened sense of "extremely bad" is first recorded 1904, perhaps from Abysmal ignorance (suggestive of its "depth"), an expression attested from 1847.