bleak
Cold, empty and without much hope.
bleak in a sentence
- The moor looked bleak in January: grey sky, bare trees and biting wind.
- The empty car park looked bleak in the drizzle, grey and cheerless in every direction.
Try an 11+ style question
Verbal reasoning papers often ask about a word like this.
Which word is closest in meaning to bleak?
- Asunny
- Bcheerful
- Cbright
- Dgloomy
Show the answer
D: gloomy. The other three mean the opposite of bleak.
Which word is most nearly opposite in meaning to bleak?
- Acheerful
- Bgrim
- Cgloomy
- Dbare
Show the answer
A: cheerful. The other three mean nearly the same as bleak.
Words that mean something similar
gloomy, grim, bare
Words that mean the opposite
cheerful, bright, sunny
More words about weather & nature
- conserve: To protect something from harm, or to save it from being wasted.
- cultivate: To grow plants, or to work at improving something.
- dreary: Dull, grey and boring.
- drenched: Completely soaked with water.
- drought: A long time with little or no rain, when the land dries out.
- erode: To wear something away slowly, little by little.
- extinction: The dying out of a whole kind of animal or plant, so that none are left.
- famine: A time when there is not enough food for many people to eat.
More words to explore
Sitting the 11+ in Kent, Medway or Buckinghamshire?
Plain-English guides to each test, from the councils’ own pages: Kent Test · Medway Test · Bucks Secondary Transfer Test