different between bleak vs overcast

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 overcasten, equivalent to over- +? cast. Compare Swedish överkasta.

Pronunciation

Adjective and noun

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ??v?-käst', IPA^(key): /???v??k??st/
• (General American) enPR: ??v?r-k?st', IPA^(key): /?o?v?.kæst/

Verb

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ?'v?-käst?, IPA^(key): /???v??k??st/
• (General American) enPR: ?'v?r-k?st?, IPA^(key): /?o?v??kæst/
• Rhymes: -??st

Noun

overcast (plural overcasts)

1. (obsolete) An outcast.
2. A cloud covering all of the sky from horizon to horizon; cloudy.

Adjective

overcast (comparative more overcast, superlative most overcast)

1. Covered with clouds; overshadowed; darkened; (meteorology) more than 90% covered by clouds.
2. (figuratively) In a state of depression; gloomy; melancholy.

Translations

Verb

overcast (third-person singular simple present overcasts, present participle overcasting, simple past and past participle overcast)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To overthrow.
2. (transitive) To cover with cloud; to overshadow; to darken.
3. (transitive) To make gloomy; to depress.
4. (intransitive, obsolete) To be or become cloudy.
5. (transitive, obsolete) To transform.
6. (transitive, bookbinding) To fasten (sheets) by overcast stitching or by folding one edge over another.

Translations

References

• overcast in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• overcast in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• overacts