[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality of being bleak; chilly bareness.
1600. F. Walker, trans. Span. Mandeville, 136 a. The bleeknes [printed bleetenes] of this wind … is cause that … the Rivers, ponds, and Lakes are all frozen.
1695. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, II. (1723), 81. The great Bleakness and Cold of those Countryies.
1851. Nichol, Archit. Heav., 27. The awful bleakness of space.
