cheerless

English

Etymology

From cheer +‎ -less.

Pronunciation

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• Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)ləs

Adjective

cheerless (comparative more cheerless, superlative most cheerless)

1. Devoid of cheer; gloomy.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:sad

   Antonym: cheerful

   • 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:

     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; […]

   • 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:

     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.

   • 1953 February, H. A. Vallance, “To Brighton through the Shoreham Gap”, in Railway Magazine, page 82:

     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.

Derived terms

• cheerlessly
• cheerlessness

Translations

Devoid of cheer

• Bulgarian: безрадостен (bg) (bezradosten)
• Ottoman Turkish: آجی (acı) (of sounds)

Anagrams

• Scheelers, rechlesse