New maids left sad (6)
I believe the answer is:
dismal
'sad' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'new maids left' is the wordplay.
'new' indicates an anagram.
'left' becomes 'l' (common abbreviation).
'maids' is an anagram of 'disma'.
'disma'+'l'='DISMAL'
(Other definitions for dismal that I've seen before include "down in the dumps" , "'Depressing, grim (6)'" , "Dull and dreary" , "Dreary, cheerless" , "pitifully bad" .)