bearish

adjective

bear·​ish ˈber-ish 

1

: resembling a bear in build or in roughness, gruffness, or surliness

a bearish man

2

a

: marked by, tending to cause, or fearful of falling prices (as in a stock market)

bearish investors

b

: pessimistic

bearishly adverb

bearishness noun

Synonyms of bearish

• hopeless
• cynical
• pessimistic
• negative

Examples of bearish in a Sentence

The market has been bearish lately.

some studio execs are bearish about this summer's box office

Recent Examples on the Web

The core of the firm’s bearish thesis centers on a massive pool of routine, low-complexity insurance policies. —Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 3 Mar. 2026

Still, not all analysts were bearish. —Yun Li, CNBC, 2 Mar. 2026

The stock market tumbled — three separate days — because of investors’ both bearish and bullish fears about AI, including Nvidia’s somewhat tepid outlook and a viral blog post that imagined a hypothetical scenario in which white-collar work evaporated. —Auzinea Bacon, CNN Money, 28 Feb. 2026

This bearish play threatens the very driver that has powered broader, double-digit gains across the benchmark S&P 500 for the past two years. —Allie Canal, NBC news, 26 Feb. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1607, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for bearish

• cherish
• farish
• garish
• perish
• squarish
• nightmarish