bleak

CEFRC1

/bliːk/

adjective · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    providing no shelter or sustenance.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Extra detail

    Desolate and exposed; swept by cold winds.

Examples

  • The weather forecast for the upcoming weekend looks very bleak.

  • The economic situation is very bleak.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

  1. Unhappy; cheerless; miserable; emotionally desolate.

  2. Without color; pale; pallid.

noun

Extra meaning

  1. A small European river fish (Alburnus alburnus), of the family Cyprinidae.

More examples

In context

  • The outlook is bleak.

  • They escaped across the bleak landscape.

  • a bleak and bare rock

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The future looked blank after the economic collapse left the town without jobs.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

From Middle English bleke (also bleche, whence the English doublet bleach (“pale, bleak”)), and bleike (due to Old Norse), and earlier Middle English blak, blac (“pale, wan”), from Old English blǣc, blǣċ, blāc (“bleak, pale, pallid”) and Old Norse bleikr (“pale, whitish”), all from Proto-Germanic *blaikaz (“pale, shining”). Cognate with Dutch bleek (“pale, wan, pallid”), Low German blek (“pale”), German bleich (“pale, wan, sallow”), Danish bleg (“pale”), Swedish blek (“pale, pallid”), Norwegian Bokmål bleik, blek (“pale”), Norwegian Nynorsk bleik (“pale”), Faroese bleikur (“pale”), Icelandic bleikur (“pale, pink”).