Meaning of BLEAK
| Pronunciation: | | bleek
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 WordNet Dictionary |
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- [adj] 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"
- [adj] 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"
- [adj] unpleasantly cold and damp; "bleak winds of the North Atlantic"
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| | Synonyms: | | bare, barren, black, cold, cutting, desolate, dim, hopeless, inhospitable, raw, stark |
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| Webster's 1913 Dictionary |
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\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.
\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.
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| Thesaurus Terms |
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| | Related Terms: | | 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, Siberian, 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 |
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