cheerless
adjective
Synonyms
- black
- bleak
- chill
- Cimmerian
- cloudy
- cold
- comfortless
- dark
- darkening
- depressing
- depressive
- desolate
- dire
- disconsolate
- dismal
- drear
- dreary
- dreich [chiefly Scottish]
- elegiac
- elegiacal
- forlorn
- funereal
- gloomy
- glum
- godforsaken
- gray
- grey
- lonely
- lonesome
- lugubrious
- miserable
- morbid
- morose
- murky
- plutonian
- saturnine
- sepulchral
- solemn
- somber
- sombre
- sullen
- sunless
- tenebrific
- tenebrous
- wretched
Example Sentences
Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 19 July 2022 For all his gloom, Mann was not entirely cheerless. Los Angeles Times, 29 July 2021 Lawrence’s was among the last, with a green campus full of trees, but a gray, cheerless interior and food that, in his words, looked regurgitated. Sarah Enelow-snyder, New York Times, 25 Mar. 2020 Bishop spent a cold childhood raised by cheerless Calvinist grandparents (her official guardian, Uncle Jack, was reputedly something of a bully), and quickly learned that intense emotional attachments led to distress. Scott Bradfield, Washington Post, 8 Nov. 2019 Nothing like signifyin’ in the Henry Louis Gates Jr. sense, with its necessarily intelligent playfulness, but something essentially post-literate and cheerless. Kevin D. Williamson, National Review, 11 July 2019 But a future predicated on product development alone, with little to offer the human heart, is a cheerless future indeed. Michael J. Lewis, WSJ, 10 Jan. 2019 Just ahead awaits a peculiar Southern California landscape of palm trees and barbed wire, and then a cheerless, pitiless site: Terminal Island Federal Correctional Institution. James Andrew Miller, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 Feb. 2018 The visit draws a strangely dutiful, cheerless local crowd. Holland Cotter, New York Times, 13 Sep. 2017 See More Word History
1575, in the meaning defined above
Kids Definition
cheerless
adjective
cheerless
adjective
Synonyms & Similar Words
- bleak
- lonely
- somber
- desolate
- dark
- depressive
- depressing
- darkening
- lonesome
- cold
- murky
- solemn
- miserable
- gray
- morbid
- gloomy
- drear
- dreary
- wretched
- glum
- morose
- sullen
- comfortless
- depressed
- dismal
- forlorn
- disconsolate
- lugubrious
- blue
- funereal
- black
- sad
- sepulchral
- chill
- godforsaken
- melancholy
- grey
- saturnine
- sombre
- dire
- cloudy
- oppressive
- elegiac
- sunless
- tenebrous
- dreich
- unhappy
- dull
- dejected
- mirthless
- grim
- woebegone
- hopeless
- mournful
- desperate
- melancholic
- dim
- distressful
- plutonian
- hangdog
- elegiacal
- woeful
- despondent
- dispiriting
- drab
- sorrowful
- negative
- discomfiting
- discouraging
- tenebrific
- pessimistic
- droopy
- inconsolable
- menacing
- dismaying
- Cimmerian
- dour
- upsetting
- distressing
- low
- lamentable
- disheartening
- plaintive
- down
- colorless
- louring
- threatening
- lowery
- lowering
- loury
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
- cheerful
- cheery
- bright
- festive
- joyous
- jolly
- friendly
- merry
- joyful
- sunshiny
- comforting
- cordial
- gay
- mirthful
- buoyant
- blithe
- optimistic
- gay
- jocund
- blithesome
- hopeful
- heartwarming
- encouraging
- cheering
- lighthearted
- lightsome
Synonym Chooser
Some common synonyms of cheerless are bleak, desolate, dismal, dreary, and gloomy. While all these words mean "devoid of cheer or comfort," cheerless stresses absence of anything cheering.
The meanings of bleak and cheerless largely overlap; however, bleak suggests chill, dull, and barren characteristics that utterly dishearten.
In some situations, the words desolate and cheerless are roughly equivalent. However, desolate adds an element of utter remoteness or lack of human contact to any already disheartening aspect.
While in some cases nearly identical to cheerless, dismal indicates extreme and utterly depressing gloominess.
The synonyms dreary and cheerless are sometimes interchangeable, but dreary, often interchangeable with dismal, emphasizes discouragement resulting from sustained dullness or futility.
While the synonyms gloomy and cheerless are close in meaning, gloomy often suggests lack of hope or promise.