cheerless
adjEtymology From cheer + -less.
1
Devoid of cheer; gloomy.
- I then went on, beginning with the rise and progress of the primitive religions, and coming down to the various religions of the present time, during which time I labored to show Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense; […]1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Ramadan”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 96:
- Men, women and children work together seven days in the week in these cheerless tenements to make a living for the family, from the break of day till far into the night.1890, Jacob A[ugust] Riis, “The Bohemians—Tenement-house Cigarmaking”, in How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 138:
2 more examples
- The railway then follows the widening estuary of the river, which at high tide has the appearance of a lake, but at low water presents a rather cheerless expanse of dark mud.1953 February, H. A. Vallance, “To Brighton through the Shoreham Gap”, in Railway Magazine, page 82:
- This is itself a cheerless spot, particularly on a rainy day, when, overshadowed by the great massif of rock that towers in the background, and surrounded by the grey and cheerless quarries, it has a depressing character much in contrast with the green verdure encountered on the northern end of this interesting branch line.1954 August, H. M. Madgwick, “The Blaenau Festiniog Tunnel”, in Railway Magazine, page 569:
- Synonyms
42 terms
cheerless, comfortless, bleak, dark, morose, depressing, desolate, dire, disconsolate, dismal, doleful, dolesome, drear, drearisome, dreary, dreich, forlorn, gayless, gray, gloomsome, gloomy, grim, joyless, lack-laughter, lugubrious, melancholy, mirthless, miserable, no joke, saturnine, solemn, somber, sombre, spiritless, sullen, sunless, uncheerful, uncheery, unhappy, unmerry, wintry, woeful- Derived terms
- cheerlessly, cheerlessness
- Related terms
- abandoned, barren, dank, dearthful, dim, dull, epicedial, flat, funereal, lamentable, lifeless, pallid, serious, severe, stern, sad
- Hypernyms
- lacking
- Hyponyms
- humorless, ramshackle