(a.) Cold and cutting; cheerless; as, a bleak blast.
(a.) A small European river fish (Leuciscus alburnus), of the family Cyprinidae; the blay.
Example Sentences:
(1) "The results present a remarkably bleak portrait of life in the UK today and the shrinking opportunities faced by the bottom third of UK society," said the head of the project, Professor David Gordon of Bristol University.
(2) The study says: "The short-term outlook for the labour market looks bleak.
(3) He'd later carry this over into Netflix's House Of Cards but before that, TV had already begun to emulate this new, bleak, antiheroic maturity with a cycle of dark, longform, acclaimed dramas, commencing with The Sopranos and culminating in Breaking Bad .
(4) This is training that predators rely upon,” she says in the book, “It is, perhaps, a form of gender-wide grooming.” For Caro, the opportunity of the book was to “place the blame where it lies,” she says, “squarely on the shoulders of those who use their power to exploit and damage others.” For all its bleakness, I drew comfort from the stories of the other contributors.
(5) Through small and large acts of deprivation and destruction we follow the process: the removal of hope, of dignity, of luxury, of necessity, of self; the reduction of a man to a hoarder of grey slabs of bread and the scrapings of a soup bowl (wonderfully told all this, with a novelist's gift for detail and sometimes very nearly comic surprise), to the confinement of a narrow bed – in which there is "not even any room to be afraid" – with a stranger who doesn't speak your language, to the cruel illogicality of hating a fellow victim of oppression more than you hate the oppressor himself – one torment following another, and even the bleak comfort of thinking you might have touched rock bottom denied you as, when the most immediate cause of a particular stress comes to an end, "you are grievously amazed to see that another one lies behind; and in reality a whole series of others".
(6) He said the “bleak alternative” would have been to go through numerous probate courts while distant relatives of Gurlitt made their claims on the collection.
(7) After dismissing the ending of Revolutionary Road as "falsely bleak" and telling his audience that "there's something goofy about American literature since modernism came to an end", the celebrated author of Freedom and The Corrections moved on to social media .
(8) Bleak jokes and cartoons have been circulating for weeks in the anti-Assad camp on the theme of barrel bombs serving as ballot boxes.
(9) "I have such passion for what I do that I can't see it as bleak.
(10) It is to be hoped that pharmaceutical developments will improve the current bleak picture in which there are no proven treatments for ischaemic stroke or intracerebral haemorrhage.
(11) Next month Commonwealth leaders gather in Sri Lanka amid a bleak human rights situation as the country emerges from two decades of civil war that saw 40,000 civilians lose their lives .
(12) Things began to look bleak for the Saddlers when Chelsea extended their lead four minutes from the interval.
(13) The compelling television series The Returned , which concludes on Sunday on Channel 4, and several award-winning titles from French authors are earning fresh international plaudits for Gallic storytelling and proving that it is not only Norway, Sweden and Denmark that can offer a bleak outlook and a half-lit landscape.
(14) The alternative is to leave our young children facing a bleak future.
(15) Concomitant other distant metastases conferred a bleak prognosis.
(16) "I don't know why," he says, but it's something that didn't even happen at his lowest ebb: amid the bleakness of the early 70s, he somehow kept sporadically producing incredible songs: Til I Die, This Whole World, Sail On Sailor… There's always touring, however.
(17) The forecast is for one of the coldest winters in Syria for 100 years, with more than four million people displaced inside the country and an estimated two million who have fled into neighbouring countries, facing an increasingly bleak existence.
(18) The Reading group reaction to Bleak House has been overwhelmingly positive.
(19) The childish vulnerability she brings out in Sara balances out the visual bleakness of the film.
(20) The bleak outlook for patients with marrow necrosis based on early experience in adults with disseminated malignancy does not appear to apply to children with ALL.
Disconsolate
Definition:
(n.) Disconsolateness.
(v. t.) Destitute of consolation; deeply dejected and dispirited; hopelessly sad; comfortless; filled with grief; as, a bereaved and disconsolate parent.
(v. t.) Inspiring dejection; saddening; cheerless; as, the disconsolate darkness of the winter nights.
Example Sentences:
(1) I suspect you would have said that even it wasn’t a pile of poo,” Lidington observed disconsolately.
(2) But not so – sadly for Labour business spokesman Chuka Umunna and his disconsolate cohorts.
(3) Morrissey: Lord of the Flies Wave upon wave upon wave upon wave washed me up on the desolate, disconsolate island of Rock Celebrity.
(4) But the picture of them sitting disconsolately at home, wrapped in Asda's hot-selling "snuggies" (blankets with sleeves) with the heating turned down, is probably misleading.
(5) We made mistakes and Agüero is a world-class finisher,” a disconsolate Steve McClaren said.
(6) Any further delay [to imposing the contract] just means we will take longer to eliminate [the] weekend effect [of higher death rates among patients admitted to hospital on a Saturday or Sunday].” The Guardian view on the government’s problems: time for intelligent compromise | Editorial Read more The MPs involved were disconsolate at Hunt’s response to what they hoped was a face-saving solution for both sides.
(7) But far beyond his family, he leaves a host of disconsolate people, from his closest friends to those whose only acquaintance was through what he wrote and said, who know they have lost a rare, wondrously talented and wholly original man.
(8) By the fourth goal, one disconsolate Brazil fan near the giant screens on Copacabana beach walked over to a group of Germans and handed them his national flag in a gesture of surrender.
(9) After sliding in to try and stop Negredo scoring Manchester City's second, he got to his feet as if to trudg disconsolently back into position, only to go to ground in agony after something appeared to buckle in his knee.
(10) Even the most disconsolate and recalcitrant rebel concedes that the party has spoken and that the leader’s mandate commands attention, even humility, although not yet sincere respect.
(11) Among angry teachers and disconsolate pupils, there is a particularly loud outcry about shifts in the grade thresholds in GCSE English.
(12) It was the correct decision by the letter of the law, though not by the spirit of the final, as shown when Ashley Williams ran over to console Duke – a former team-mate at Stockport County – as he trudged away disconsolately after the first sending off of his career.
(13) "We felt disconsolate [about the North Koreans' pullout] at first, but we didn't know that would it would last this long," said Yeo Dongkoo, director at Sudo Corporation, which produces handkerchiefs and scarves at Kaesong.
(14) Occasionally groups of disconsolate policemen armed with old Kalashnikovs squat in roadside posts but there is an overwhelming if diffuse sense of threat.
(15) Disconsolate pandas have struggled to breed but that little inconvenience has now been overcome.
(16) Here, Pratt appeared to be the leader, pepping up his disconsolate comrades for the challenges ahead at a time of toil and heartache.
(17) By then, the Conservative battle bus, with David Cameron on board, was heading disconsolately for Wales.
(18) Akinfeev was disconsolate as he trudged off the pitch and into an encouraging if somewhat strange high five from Capello.
(19) This shared conviction left Sunderland’s manager looking on disconsolate as, inspired by Christian Eriksen, Pochettino’s Tottenham monopolised the ball.
(20) Colleagues who remained at their campaign headquarters in Appleton were disconsolate, slumped before a computer screen, slowly realising that almost 500 days of rebellion had ended in failure despite impressive mobilisation of their base.