bleak
English
/bliːk/
adj
Definitions
- Without color; pale; pallid.
- Desolate and exposed; swept by cold winds.
- Unhappy; cheerless; miserable; emotionally desolate.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English bleke (small river fish, bleak, blay), blak (black) inherited from Old English blǣc derived from Old Norse bleikr (pale, yellow, any non-red warm color, pink, whitish) inherited from Proto-Germanic *blaikaz (pale, shining, white).
Origin
Proto-Germanic
*blaikaz
Gloss
pale, shining, white
Concept
Semantic Field
Food and drink
Ontological Category
Person/Thing
Kanji
白
Emoji
⚾️ ❄️ 🎪 🏔️ 🐻❄️ 🤍 🥋 🦓 🦳
Timeline
Distribution of cognates by language
Geogrpahic distribution of cognates
Cognates and derived terms
- Black English
- black English
- blake English
- bleaken English
- bleakish English
- bleakly English
- bleakness English
- bleakonomics English
- bleaksome English
- sun English
- sunbleak English
- unbleak English
- bleich German
- bleichrot German
- kreidebleich German
- wachsbleich German
- bleek Dutch, Flemish
- blekerd Dutch, Flemish
- doodsbleek Dutch, Flemish
- lijkbleek Dutch, Flemish
- *bʰleyǵ- Proto-Indo-European
- bleik Norwegian Bokmål
- blek Norwegian Bokmål
- *blaikaz Proto-Germanic
- blek Swedish
- blek gråmes Swedish
- blek tornseglare Swedish
- blekna Swedish
- bleik Norwegian Nynorsk
- bleikandlet Norwegian Nynorsk
- bleikansikt Norwegian Nynorsk
- blac Old English
- blacian Old English
- blæc Old English
- blāc Old English
- blǣc Old English
- blǣċ Old English
- blak Middle English
- bleke Middle English
- bleikr Old Norse
- bleg Danish
- bleghed Danish
- bleikur Icelandic
- blêec Middle Dutch
- bleih Old High German
- blëcchazzen Old High German
- bleikur Faroese
- marmorbleikur Faroese
- bliat Norman
- bleech Luxembourgish, Letzeburgesch
- *blaik gmw-pro
- *blēk Old Dutch
- *laikka Proto-Finnic
- blajk Westrobothnian
- bleg Scots
- bladje Walloon
- blaih lng