bleak1
[bleek]
- bare, desolate, and often windswept: a bleak plain.
- cold and piercing; raw: a bleak wind.
- without hope or encouragement; depressing; dreary: a bleak future.
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Origin of bleak1
1300–50; Middle English bleke pale, blend of variants bleche (Old English blǣc) and blake (Old English blāc); both cognate with Old Norse bleikr, German bleich; akin to bleach
Synonym study
3. See austere.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for bleakest
Contemporary Examples
“Justice-without-mercy must easily be the bleakest, coldest, combination of words in the language,” Salinger writes.
When Salinger Spoke Out: A Rare 1959 Public Letter Against Life in PrisonNicolaus Mills
December 9, 2013
The nonprofit Samasource farms out manual data-entry work to refugees in the bleakest war-torn areas on earth.
But it is precisely when conditions are bleakest that people on both sides require a positive vision for the future.
That comes a few hours after the jobs report from Friday morning, one of the bleakest yet.
And working in politics at the bleakest moment is better than any other career that certainly was available to me.
Historical Examples
A gray dawn was breaking, and this is the coldest and bleakest hour of the day.
Left on the LabradorDillon Wallace
It was near the setting of the sun on one of the bleakest and coldest days of the year.
The Tory MaidHerbert Baird Stimpson
He looked the saddest, sickest, bleakest creature I had ever seen.
The Mutiny of the ElsinoreJack London
As for me, I would not change the bleakest of them for the province of Champagne.
Doom CastleNeil Munro
It was a heavy forenoon for me, perhaps the bleakest and dreariest of my life.
The Book of SusanLee Wilson Dodd
bleak1
- exposed and barren; desolate
- cold and raw
- offering little hope or excitement; dismala bleak future
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Word Origin
Old English blāc bright, pale; related to Old Norse bleikr white, Old High German bleih pale
bleak2
- any slender silvery European cyprinid fish of the genus Alburnus, esp A. lucidus, occurring in slow-flowing rivers
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Word Origin
C15: probably from Old Norse bleikja white colour; related to Old High German bleiche bleach
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for bleakest
bleak
adj.
c.1300, "pale," from Old Norse bleikr "pale, whitish, blond," from Proto-Germanic *blaika- "shining, white," from PIE root *bhel- (1) "to shine, flash, burn" (see bleach (v.)). Later "bare, windswept" (1530s). Sense of "cheerless" is c.1719 figurative extension. The same Germanic root produced Old English blac "pale," but this died out, probably from confusion with blæc "black;" however bleak persisted, with a sense of "bare" as well as "pale."
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper