cheerless

adjective

cheer·less ˈchir-ləs

Synonyms of cheerless next

: lacking qualities that cheer : bleak, joyless

a cheerless room

cheerlessly adverb

cheerlessness noun

Choose the Right Synonym for cheerless

dismal, dreary, bleak, gloomy, cheerless, desolate mean devoid of cheer or comfort.

dismal indicates extreme and utterly depressing gloominess.

dismal weather

dreary, often interchangeable with dismal, emphasizes discouragement resulting from sustained dullness or futility.

a dreary job

bleak suggests chill, dull, and barren characteristics that utterly dishearten.

the bleak years of the depression

gloomy often suggests lack of hope or promise.

gloomy war news

cheerless stresses absence of anything cheering.

a drab and cheerless office

desolate adds an element of utter remoteness or lack of human contact to any already disheartening aspect.

a desolate outpost

Example Sentences

The room was surprisingly bare and cheerless. a dank and cheerless castle that was once the site of unspeakable horrors

Recent Examples on the Web That turned an entertaining exhibition into an awkward and cheerless faux-competitive affair. —

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

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'cheerless.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.