Bleak

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /bliːk/

Definitions

1. Grim and depressing, offering little hope or comfort
2. Having a cold, barren, and windswept appearance that gives a sense of desolation ; lacking any promise or positive outlook, causing feelings of hopelessness
3. Describing a stark and chilly environment that seems empty and inhospitable ; presenting a situation or prospect that appears discouraging and dreary

Etymology: Bleak began as a word for colour, not weather. Its Old English ancestor "blǣc" meant pale or pallid, and the same root gave Dutch "bleek", German "bleich" and Old Norse "bleikr", all describing something washed of colour. Bleach is a close relative: a doublet that kept the sense of paleness and became the name for whitening cloth. The shift toward gloom came from landscape. A pale, whitish sky or a washed-out, colourless stretch of ground looks cheerless, so "pale" slid naturally into "dreary" and then "bare and exposed," which is how the word came to describe a windswept moor or a grey afternoon. A separate word, "bleke", named a small silvery river fish, the bleak or blay. Its origin is uncertain: it may have been altered under the influence of "blǣc" meaning bright, or of Old Norse "bleikja", or it may be a diminutive of "blay". The fish and the adjective share a spelling and a sense of pale shining, but scholars do not agree on whether they are linked.

Synonyms: desolate, dreary, gloomy, bare, harsh

Antonyms: bright, cheerful, promising, hopeful, inviting