Wednesday, April 23, 2008

bleak

Definition
1.
bare, desolate, and often windswept: a bleak plain.
2.
cold and piercing; raw: a bleak wind.
3.
without hope or encouragement; depressing; dreary: a bleak future.

Word origin:

c.1300, from O.N. bleikr "pale" (see bleach). Sense of "cheerless" is c.1719 figurative extension. The same Gmc. root produced the O.E. blac "pale," but this died out, probably from confusion with blæc "black;" but bleikr persisted, with a sense of "bare" as well as "pale."


Teo Cher Kian_1-3

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