different between bleak vs forlorn

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bli?k/
• Rhymes: -i?k

Etymology 1

From Middle English bleke (also bleche > English bleach (“pale, bleak”)), and bleike (due to Old Norse), and earlier Middle English blak, blac (“pale, wan”), from Old English bl?c, bl??, bl?c (“bleak, pale, pallid, wan, livid; bright, shining, glittering, flashing”) and Old Norse bleikr (“pale, whitish”), from Proto-Germanic *blaikaz (“pale, shining”). Cognate with Dutch bleek (“pale, wan, pallid”), Low German blek (“pale”), German bleich (“pale, wan, sallow”), Danish bleg (“pale”), Swedish blek (“pale, pallid”), Norwegian Bokmål bleik, blek (“pale”), Norwegian Nynorsk bleik (“pale”), Faroese bleikur (“pale”), Icelandic bleikur (“pale, pink”).

Adjective

bleak (comparative bleaker, superlative bleakest)

1. Without color; pale; pallid.
   • 1563, John Foxe, Actes and Monuments

     When she came out she looked as pale and as bleak as one that were laid out dead.

2. Desolate and exposed; swept by cold winds.
   • 1793, William Wordsworth, Descriptive Sketches

     Wastes too bleak to rear / The common growth of earth, the foodful ear.
3. Unhappy; cheerless; miserable; emotionally desolate.

Synonyms

• (sickly pale): see also Thesaurus:pallid

Derived terms

• bleaken

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English bleke (“small river fish, bleak, blay”), perhaps an alteration (due to English bl?c (“bright”) or Old Norse bleikja) of Old English bl??e (“bleak, blay, gudgeon”); or perhaps from a diminutive of Middle English *bleye (“blay”), equivalent to blay +? -ock or blay +? -kin. See blay.

Noun

bleak (plural bleaks or bleak)

1. A small European river fish (Alburnus alburnus), of the family Cyprinidae.

Synonyms

• ablet
• alburn
• blay

Derived terms

• sunbleak

Translations

References

Anagrams

• Balke, Blake, Kaleb, blake

English

Etymology

From Middle English forlorn, forloren, from Old English forloren (past participle of forl?osan (“to lose”)), from Proto-Germanic *fraluzanaz (“lost”), past participle of Proto-Germanic *fraleusan? (“to lose”), equivalent to for- +? lorn. Cognate with West Frisian ferlern (“lost”), Saterland Frisian ferlädden (“lost”), Dutch verloren (“lost”), German Low German verloren (“lost”),German verloren (“lost”), Swedish förlorad (“lost”). See further at lese/leese, lorn.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /f??l??n/, /f??-/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /f???l??n/
• Rhymes: -??(?)n
• Hyphenation: for?lorn

Adjective

forlorn (comparative forlorner or more forlorn, superlative forlornest or most forlorn)

1. Abandoned, deserted, left behind.
2. Miserable, as when lonely after being abandoned.

   Synonym: forsaken
3. Unlikely to succeed; hopeless.

Alternative forms

• forlorne (obsolete)

Derived terms

• forlornling
• forlornness
• forlornly

Related terms

• forlorn hope
• lovelorn

Translations

Noun

forlorn (plural forlorns) (military)

1. A forlorn hope.
2. A member of a forlorn hope.

Verb

forlorn

1. (obsolete) past participle of forlese.