bleakbleak /bliːk/ ●○○ adjective 
The company still hopes to find a buyer, but the future looks bleak.2cold and without any pleasant or comfortable features: a bleak January afternoon The landscape was bleak.—bleakly adverb—bleakness noun [uncountable]
WORD ORIGINbleak
Origin:
1300-1400 Old Norse bleikr ‘pale, white’EXAMPLES FROM OTHER DICTIONARIES
- He gazed around the empty, bleak little room in despair.
- His prospects of finding another job are bleak.
- It looks pretty bleak for avocado growers here.
- Many people were facing a financially bleak Christmas.
- Prospects of success looked bleak as the opposition scored the first two goals.
- the bleakest year of the Depression
- The chief executive said that the company was looking at a bleak future.
- The future looked bleak for the Democratic party.
- The snow-covered coast looked bleak and uninviting.
- The wild landscape was bleak and bare.
- For savers, the picture probably will get bleaker.
- It could have shared the owner's adventures and vicissitudes, occupied his leisure hours, cheered his bleaker moments.
- Maybe in the bleak light of dawn Kathy arranged a pile of twigs on the beach.
- Only an occasional ferry boat makes a last, bleak journey across the river to Birkenhead and the Wirral.
- The Chicago settings are authentically bleak and the plotting subtle and incisive.
- Things began to look pretty bleak, from the standpoint of building a career.
- This is the wildest, bleakest and least densely populated area of Ulthuan.
Longman Language Activatorwhen there is no hope of improvement or success
· The firemen tried to stop the flames from spreading, but it was hopeless.· Remember, it's just when things look hopeless that you sometimes get a lucky break.
so bad that, unless you get help immediately, there is no hope: · The situation is desperate -- there are just not enough beds in the hospital.· Another two weeks without emergency aid and I'd think things could become quite desperate.
a gloomy situation is one in which there is very little hope of improvement: · This latest survey presents a gloomy picture of the Russian economy.· Evidence that the world's population is increasing faster than ever implies a gloomy prospect for humanity: starvation.
a bleak situation is one in which there is very little hope of improvement and will probably get worse: · His prospects of finding another job are bleak.· The future looked bleak for the Democratic party.
say this when a situation is so bad that it is useless to hope that it will improve: · The doctor has said there's no hope. She only has a few weeks to live.there is no hope of: · The prison was on a small, rocky island. There was no hope of escape.there is no hope for: · I'm afraid there's no hope for us, unless you can give us the help we need.
making you feel sad use this about a story, piece of music, period of time etc that makes you feel sad: sad time/day/moment/occasion etc: · The day her son left home was one of the saddest days of her life.sad news/story/song etc: · Fairuz sang a sad song that made us all feel homesick.· I don't like movies with sad endings.it is sad that: · It's very sad that she died before her children grew up.
: unhappy childhood/marriage/year etc a time when you are unhappy because you are in a difficult or unpleasant situation: · Phil was married for three unhappy years.· Looking at that photo always bring back unhappy memories.· an unhappy love affair
a depressing experience, story, piece of news etc makes you feel that there is nothing to be happy about and not much hope for the future: · The Deerhunter was a very depressing movie about Vietnam.· It's such a depressing town - it's full of ugly, disused factories.· Listening to the news can be really depressing, when all you ever hear about is violence and crime.
an upsetting experience or event makes you feel very sad and often shocked: · Seeing her lying there in a hospital bed was a very upsetting experience.· She can't talk about her son's death - she finds it too upsetting.it is upsetting to find/know/learn etc something: · It's very upsetting to arrive home and find that your house has been burgled.
a time that is miserable is one when you are extremely unhappy because you are in a very unpleasant situation: · Factory workers during the 18th century led miserable lives.· The journey home was miserable. Everyone was depressed about losing the game.
a story, event, piece of news etc that is heartbreaking makes you feel extremely sad and sorry or extremely disappointed: · It's a heartbreaking moment when a great sportsman finally decides that it's time to quit.· The decision to kill the infected animals was a heart-rending one for farmers.it is heartbreaking to see/learn etc something: · Having worked so hard to start the business, it would be heartbreaking to see it all collapse.
a dismal place, situation, or time makes you feel unhappy and not at all hopeful: · It was a grey, dismal November afternoon.· Melinda joined her husband in Moscow, but soon found life there bleak and dismal.· The profit margin on hardware sales for the first quarter was a dismal 29%.
a place, activity, or time that is dreary is not at all interesting or enjoyable and makes you feel unhappy: · This room is so dreary. How can we brighten it up?· a dreary winter's day· Cooking for one person can be a dreary business, as many elderly people find.
a place or situation that is bleak is one in which there is nothing to make you feel cheerful or hopeful about the future: · The wild landscape was bleak and bare.· He gazed around the empty, bleak little room in despair.· Many people were facing a financially bleak Christmas.· The chief executive said that the company was looking at a bleak future.the outlook/prospect/future etc is bleak : · Prospects of success looked bleak as the opposition scored the first two goals.
COLLOCATIONS FROM THE ENTRY The company still hopes to find a buyer, but the future looks bleak.COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
1without anything to make you feel happy or hopefula bleak future/prospect The company still hopes to find a buyer, but the future looks bleak.· Many pensioners face a bleak future.
(=without anything to make you feel hopeful)· The theatre is losing money and its future looks bleak.
(=giving the impression that something is or will be bad)· The report paints a bleak picture of the economy.
· Many Britons face the grim prospect of having their home repossessed.
COLLOCATIONS FROM THE CORPUSADVERB· Of course, the picture may not have been quite as bleak as all this might suggest.· The room seemed to sum up his life: his future seemed as bleak as this cubicle.· And doubting her husband on this point, she wondered if Timothy Gedge's future was as bleak as he had forecast.· Prospects for the weeks and months ahead look about as bleak.· The zoo curators at the conference had news that was almost as bleak.· The situation in Ulster in 1985 was as bleak as ever.· His face was as bleak as the frost.
· By the end of the week the prospect was even bleaker.· The next cluster of ugly barracks surrounded by barbed wire would be even bleaker because it was unfamiliar.· For Ricardo Ellcock, the picture is even bleaker.· The bottom line is even bleaker.· To the outward eye he was austere, even bleak.
· At the turn of the century, things looked very bleak for the Rottweiler.· I wanted to be a newspaper man, but chances looked very bleak in those days for blacks to think about that.· In 1950 the economic picture had looked very bleak.· We should now have a very bleak and bare countryside.
NOUN· But as she lapped up the five-star treatment on the champagne Concorde flight, angry pensioners were facing a bleak future.· Like many of the black artists he mimicked, Presley grew up poor and with a seemingly bleak future.· His marriage has broken up, he rarely sees his teenage daughter and he faces a bleak future.· Now the hard working couple say they face a miserable Christmas and a bleak future.· They say the airlift has brought new hope to people who would otherwise have faced a bleak future.
· After another mile, Chapel-le-Dale is reached, an oasis of greenery in a bleak landscape.· The bleak landscape wouldn't be different at all.· The bleak landscape made Zen think back to his dream, to his own father's fate.
· But here, too, recent analysis presents a bleaker picture than that of the traditional liberal view.· Doctors stop short of saying the disease is always fatal, but medical literature paints a bleak picture.· He writes: This seems to be an unnecessarily bleak picture.· The imagery and language help conjure up the bleak picture of death in the two poems.· He remembered their talk together and the bleak picture she had painted for him of her life.
· Myriad receptions and reunions could not disguise the bleak prospects for job hunters.· It may well be this bleak prospect that has spawned the flurry of books about Yiddish in recent years.· The bleak prospect of the labour camps, slavery in Siberia?
The company still hopes to find a buyer, but the future looks bleak.2cold and without any pleasant or comfortable features: a bleak January afternoon The landscape was bleak.—bleakly adverb—bleakness noun [uncountable]