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Blear vs Bleak - What's the difference?

blear | bleak |

As adjectives the difference between blear and bleak

is that blear is dim, unclear from water or rheum while bleak is without color; pale; pallid.

As a verb blear

is to make blurred or dim, especially the eyes.

As a noun bleak is

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

blear

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • (of eyes or vision) dim, unclear from water or rheum.
  • * Charles Dickens
    • His blear eyes ran in gutters to his chin.
  • * 1981 , John Gardner, Freddy's Book , Abacus 1982, p. 74:
    • The Devil, now disguised as a half-wit peasant to Lars-Goren's left, stood grinning, his blear eyes glittering.
  • Causing or caused by dimness of sight.
  • * Milton
    • Power to cheat the eye with blear illusion.

    See also

    * bleary

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make blurred or dim, especially the eyes.

    • Anagrams

    * * * ----

    bleak

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) bleke (also bleche > English .

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Without color; pale; pallid.
  • * Foxe
    • When she came out she looked as pale and as bleak as one that were laid out dead.
  • Desolate and exposed; swept by cold winds.
  • * Wordsworth
    • Wastes too bleak to rear / The common growth of earth, the foodful ear.
  • * Longfellow
    • at daybreak, on the bleak sea beach
    A bleak and bare rock.
    They escaped across the bleak landscape.
    A bleak , crater-pocked moonscape.
    We hiked across open meadows and climbed bleak mountains.
  • Unhappy; cheerless; miserable; emotionally desolate.
    • Downtown Albany felt bleak that February after the divorce.
    A bleak future is in store for you.
    The news is bleak .
    The survey paints a bleak picture.

    Etymology 2

    Probably from (etyl) bleikja .

    Noun

    (en noun) (wikipedia bleak)
  • A small European river fish (Alburnus alburnus ), of the family Cyprinidae.
    • Synonyms
    * alburn * blay

    References

    Anagrams

    * *