offering little or no hope; the future looked black; prospects were bleak; Life in the Aran Islands has always been bleak and difficult- J.M.Synge; took a dim view of things
providing no shelter or sustenance; bare rocky hills; barren lands; the bleak treeless regions of the high Andes; the desolate surface of the moon; a stark landscape
unpleasantly cold and damp; bleak winds of the North Atlantic