Adjacent Words

Bleak definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

BLEAK, a.
1. Pale. [But not often used in this sense, in America, as far as my observations extend.]
2. Open; vacant; exposed to a free current of air; as a bleak hill or shore. This is the true sense of the word; hence cold and cheerless. A bleak wind is not so named merely from its coldness, but from its blowing without interruption, on a wide waste;at least this is the sense in America. So in Addison. "Her desolation presents us with nothing but bleak and barren prospects.'
BLEAK, n. A small river fish, five or six inches long, so named from its whiteness. It belongs to the genus Cyprinus,and is known to the Londoners by the name of white bait. It is called also by contraction blay.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: offering little or no hope; "the future looked black"; "prospects were bleak"; "Life in the Aran Islands has always been bleak and difficult"- J.M.Synge; "took a dim view of things" [syn: black, bleak, dim]
2: providing no shelter or sustenance; "bare rocky hills"; "barren lands"; "the bleak treeless regions of the high Andes"; "the desolate surface of the moon"; "a stark landscape" [syn: bare, barren, bleak, desolate, stark]
3: unpleasantly cold and damp; "bleak winds of the North Atlantic" [syn: bleak, cutting, raw]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: Middle English bleke pale; probably akin to Old English bl?c Date: 1574 1. exposed and barren and often windswept 2. cold, raw <a bleak November evening> 3. a. lacking in warmth, life, or kindliness ; grim b. not hopeful or encouraging ; depressing <a bleak outlook> c. severely simple or austere Synonyms: see dismal • bleakly adverb • bleakness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

1. adj. 1 bare, exposed; windswept. 2 unpromising; dreary (bleak prospects). Derivatives: bleakly adv. bleakness n. Etymology: 16th c.: rel. to obs. adjs. bleach, blake (f. ON bleikr) pale, ult. f. Gmc: cf. BLEACH 2. n. any of various species of small river-fish, esp. Alburnus alburnus. Etymology: ME prob. f. ON bleikja, OHG bleicha f. Gmc

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Bleak Bleak, n. [From Bleak, a., cf. Blay.] (Zo["o]l.) A small European river fish (Leuciscus alburnus), of the family Cyprinid[ae]; the blay. [Written also blick.] Note: The silvery pigment lining the scales of the bleak is used in the manufacture of artificial pearls. --Baird.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Bleak Bleak, a. [OE. blac, bleyke, bleche, AS. bl[=a]c, bl?c, pale, wan; akin to Icel. bleikr, Sw. blek, Dan. bleg, OS. bl?k, D. bleek, OHG. pleih, G. bleich; all from the root of AS. bl[=i]can to shine; akin to OHG. bl[=i]chen to shine; cf. L. flagrare to burn, Gr. ? to burn, shine, Skr. bhr[=a]j to shine, and E. flame. ?98. Cf. Bleach, Blink, Flame.] 1. Without color; pale; pallid. [Obs.] When she came out she looked as pale and as bleak as one that were laid out dead. --Foxe. 2. Desolate and exposed; swept by cold winds. Wastes too bleak to rear The common growth of earth, the foodful ear. --Wordsworth. At daybreak, on the bleak sea beach. --Longfellow. 3. Cold and cutting; cheerless; as, a bleak blast. -- Bleak"ish, a. -- Bleak"ly, adv. -- Bleak"ness, n.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(bleaker, bleakest) 1. If a situation is bleak, it is bad, and seems unlikely to improve. The immediate outlook remains bleak... Many predicted a bleak future. = gloomy ? bright ADJ • bleakness The continued bleakness of the American job market was blamed. N-UNCOUNT: usu with supp, oft N of n 2. If you describe a place as bleak, you mean that it looks cold, empty, and unattractive. The island's pretty bleak. ...bleak inner-city streets. ADJ 3. When the weather is bleak, it is cold, dull, and unpleasant. The weather can be quite bleak on the coast. ADJ 4. If someone looks or sounds bleak, they look or sound depressed, as if they have no hope or energy. Alberg gave him a bleak stare. ADJ • bleakly 'There is nothing left,' she says bleakly. ADV: usu ADV with v, also ADV adj

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Unsheltered, exposed, bare, unprotected, wind-swept, storm-beaten. 2. Cold, chill, chilly, raw, biting, piercing, desolating. 3. Desolate, drear, dreary, ungenial, cheerless, comfortless.

Moby Thesaurus

Siberian, affecting, afflictive, affording no hope, algid, apathetic, arctic, austere, bare, barren, below zero, biting, bitter, bitterly cold, black, blown, boreal, brisk, brumal, cheerless, chilly, cold, cold as charity, cold as death, cold as ice, cold as marble, comfortless, crisp, cutting, dark, deplorable, depressing, depressive, desolate, despairing, desperate, despondent, discomforting, disconsolate, disheartening, dismal, dismaying, distressful, distressing, dolorific, dolorogenic, dolorous, dour, drear, drearisome, dreary, exposed, forlorn, freezing, freezing cold, frigid, funebrial, funereal, gelid, glacial, gloomy, grave, gray, grievous, grim, hard, harsh, hibernal, hiemal, hopeless, hyperborean, ice-cold, ice-encrusted, icelike, icy, in despair, inclement, joyless, keen, lamentable, melancholy, mournful, moving, nipping, nippy, numbing, oppressive, painful, pathetic, penetrating, piercing, pinching, piteous, pitiable, poignant, raw, regrettable, rigorous, rueful, sad, saddening, saturnine, severe, sharp, sleety, slushy, snappy, solemn, somber, sombrous, sore, sorrowful, stone-cold, stringent, subzero, supercooled, touching, triste, uncomfortable, unhappy, unhopeful, weariful, wearisome, weary, windblown, windswept, winterbound, winterlike, wintery, wintry, without hope, woebegone, woeful, wretched