bleak / blēk/ • adj. (of an area of land) lacking vegetation and exposed to the elements: a bleak and barren moor. ∎  (of a building or room) charmless and inhospitable; dreary. ∎  (of the weather) cold and miserable: a bleak midwinter's day. ∎  (of a situation or future prospect) not hopeful or encouraging; unlikely to have a favorable outcome: he paints a bleak picture of a company that has lost its way. ∎  (of a person or a person's expression) cold and forbidding: his bleak, near vacant eyes grew remote.DERIVATIVES: bleak·ly adv.bleak·ness n.bleak² • n. a small silvery shoaling fish (genera Alburnus and Chalcalburnus) of the minnow family, found in Eurasian rivers.

bleak2 †pale, wan; bare of vegetation, exposed; cold from bareness; XVI. Obscurely rel. to †blake pale, yellow, †bleach pale, bare, †bleike, blayke pale, yellow — ON. bleikr shining, white = OE. blāc (ME. blāke, blōke), OS. blēk, OHG. bleih :- Gmc. *blaika-.

bleak1 small river-fish. XV. prob. — ON. bleikja = OHG. bleicha :- Gmc. *blaikjōn, f. *blaik- white (see next).