The Clue
Harsh; bleak (4 letter answer)
The Answer
GRIM
Tags
Notes
The answer GRIM is uncommon, appearing about once every 450 puzzles.
Related Clues
Bad
Bleak
Dismal
Forbidding
Gloomy
Harsh
Horrid
The ___ Reaper
Somber
Uncompromising
Unsmiling
Unyielding
Bad, as a prognosis
Hardly rosy
Like the Reaper
Not sanguine
Serious-looking
Stern and harsh
Like bad news
Like some statistics
Definition
GRIM as an adjective:
1. (grim, inexorable, relentless, stern, unappeasable, unforgiving, unrelenting) = not to be placated or appeased or moved by entreaty; "grim determination"; "grim necessity"; "Russia's final hour, it seemed, approached with inexorable certainty"; "relentless persecution"; "the stern demands of parenthood"
2. (ghastly, grim, grisly, gruesome, macabre, sick) = shockingly repellent; inspiring horror; "ghastly wounds"; "the grim aftermath of the bombing"; "the grim task of burying the victims"; "a grisly murder"; "gruesome evidence of human sacrifice"; "macabre tales of war and plague in the Middle ages"; "macabre tortures conceived by madmen"
3. (black, grim, mordant) = harshly ironic or sinister; "black humor"; "a grim joke"; "grim laughter"; "fun ranging from slapstick clowning ... to savage mordant wit"
4. (blue, dark, depressing, dingy, disconsolate, dismal, dispiriting, gloomy, grim, sorry, drab, drear, dreary) = causing dejection; "a blue day"; "the dark days of the war"; "a week of rainy depressing weather"; "a disconsolate winter landscape"; "the first dismal dispiriting days of November"; "a dark gloomy day"; "grim rainy weather"
5. (dour, forbidding, grim) = harshly uninviting or formidable in manner or appearance; "a dour, self-sacrificing life"; "a forbidding scowl"; "a grim man loving duty more than humanity"; "undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw"- J.M.Barrie
6. (gloomy, grim, darkening) = characterized by hopelessness; filled with gloom; "gloomy at the thought of what he had to face"; "gloomy predictions"; "a gloomy silence"; "took a grim view of the economy"; "the darkening mood"