bleak

bleak
    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}]
    

Bleak \Bleak\ (bl[=e]k), a. [OE. blac, bleyke, bleche, AS.
   bl[=a]c, bl[=ae]c, pale, wan; akin to Icel. bleikr, Sw. blek,
   Dan. bleg, OS. bl[=e]k, D. bleek, OHG. pleih, G. bleich; all
   from the root of AS. bl[imac]can to shine; akin to OHG.
   bl[imac]chen to shine; cf. L. flagrare to burn, Gr. fle`gein
   to burn, shine, Skr. bhr[=a]j to shine, and E. flame.
   [root]98. Cf. {Bleach}, {Blink}, {Flame}.]
   1. Without color; pale; pallid. [Obs.]
      [1913 Webster]

            When she came out she looked as pale and as bleak as
            one that were laid out dead.          --Foxe.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Desolate and exposed; swept by cold winds.
      [1913 Webster]

            Wastes too bleak to rear
            The common growth of earth, the foodful ear.
                                                  --Wordsworth.
      [1913 Webster]

            At daybreak, on the bleak sea beach.  --Longfellow.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. Cold and cutting; cheerless; as, a bleak blast.
      [1913 Webster] -- {Bleak"ish}, a. -- {Bleak"ly}, adv. --
      {Bleak"ness}, n.
      [1913 Webster]
    

Bleak \Bleak\, n. [From {Bleak}, a., cf. {Blay}.] (Zool.)
   A small European river fish ({Leuciscus alburnus}), of the
   family Cyprinid[ae]; the blay. [Written also {blick}.]
   [1913 Webster]

   Note: The silvery pigment lining the scales of the bleak is
         used in the manufacture of artificial pearls. --Baird.
         [1913 Webster]
    

134 Moby Thesaurus words for "bleak":
      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