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

Bitcoin prices dropped over the weekend, declining to their lowest point of the year as multiple bearish factors combined to drive losses. —Charles Lloyd Bovaird Ii, Forbes.com, 27 Jan. 2026

The bearish sentiment isn’t confined to the front-end—investors are the most pessimistic on the dollar’s long-term outlook since at least May 2025. —Jordan Erb, Bloomberg, 27 Jan. 2026

On the bearish side, Vanda found abnormally high flow ratios into the ProShares UltraShort Silver (ZSL), showing plenty of individual investors are making leveraged bets that the price will crash, Bhakre said. —Alex Harring, CNBC, 27 Jan. 2026

Burry described Nvidia as the most concentrated way to express a bearish view on the artificial intelligence trade. —Carmen Reinicke, Fortune, 10 Jan. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1607, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for bearish

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