BLEAK

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does bleak mean? 

• BLEAK (adjective)
  The adjective BLEAK has 3 senses:

1. offering little or no hope

2. providing no shelter or sustenance

3. unpleasantly cold and damp

  Familiarity information: BLEAK used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BLEAK (adjective)

Comparative: bleaker   
Superlative: bleakest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Offering little or no hope

Synonyms:

black; bleak; dim

Context example:

took a dim view of things

Similar:

hopeless (without hope because there seems to be no possibility of comfort or success)

Derivation:

bleakness (a bleak and desolate atmosphere)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Providing no shelter or sustenance

Synonyms:

bare; barren; bleak; desolate; stark

Context example:

a stark landscape

Similar:

inhospitable (unfavorable to life or growth)

Derivation:

bleakness (a bleak and desolate atmosphere)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Unpleasantly cold and damp

Synonyms:

bleak; cutting; raw

Context example:

bleak winds of the North Atlantic

Similar:

cold (having a low or inadequate temperature or feeling a sensation of coldness or having been made cold by e.g. ice or refrigeration)

Derivation:

bleakness (a bleak and desolate atmosphere)

 Context examples 

These bleak skies I hail, for they are kinder to me than your fellow beings.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It was a bleak and boisterous night and the wind whistled shrilly down the long street.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Slowly he followed it with his eyes, winding in wide sweeps among the bleak, bare hills, bleaker and barer and lower-lying than any hills he had yet encountered.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

One may see the soul stir in some men’s eyes, but his were bleak, and cold, and grey as the sea itself.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

It was a cold, bleak morning in the beginning of March, and the mist was drifting in dense rolling clouds through the passes of the Cantabrian mountains.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day towards the end of March in the year 1892.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His outlook was bleak and materialistic.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

“I'm a-going to carry it away with me, last of all. And heer's your old little bedroom, see, Mas'r Davy! A'most as bleak tonight, as 'art could wish!”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Hannah never forgot to make them, no matter how busy or grumpy she might be, for the walk was long and bleak.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

At the end of this day they made a bleak and miserable camp on the shore of Lake Le Barge.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)