Adjacent Words

Sullen definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

SUL'LEN, a. [perhaps set, fixed, and allied to silent, sill, etc.]
1. Gloomily angry and silent; cross; sour; affected with ill humor.
And sullen I forsook th' imperfect feast.
2. Mischievous; malignant.
Such sullen planets at my birth did shine.
3. Obstinate; intractable.
Things are as sullen as we are.
4. Gloomy; dark; dismal.
Why are thine eyes fix'd to the sullen earth?
Night with her sullen wings.
No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows.
5. Heavy; dull; sorrowful.
Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,
And sullen presage of your own decay.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: showing a brooding ill humor; "a dark scowl"; "the proverbially dour New England Puritan"; "a glum, hopeless shrug"; "he sat in moody silence"; "a morose and unsociable manner"; "a saturnine, almost misanthropic young genius"- Bruce Bliven; "a sour temper"; "a sullen crowd" [syn: dark, dour, glowering, glum, moody, morose, saturnine, sour, sullen]
2: darkened by clouds; "a heavy sky" [syn: heavy, lowering, sullen, threatening]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: Middle English solein solitary, from Anglo-French sulein, solain, perhaps from sol, soul single, sole + -ain after Old French soltain solitary, private, from Late Latin solitaneus, ultimately from Latin solus alone Date: 14th century 1. a. gloomily or resentfully silent or repressed <a sullen crowd> b. suggesting a sullen state ; lowering <a sullen countenance> 2. dull or somber in sound or color 3. dismal, gloomy <a sullen morning> 4. moving sluggishly <a sullen river> • sullenly adverb • sullenness noun Synonyms: sullen, glum, morose, surly, sulky, crabbed, saturnine, gloomy mean showing a forbidding or disagreeable mood. sullen implies a silent ill humor and a refusal to be sociable <remained sullen amid the festivities>. glum suggests a silent dispiritedness <a glum candidate left to ponder a stunning defeat>. morose adds to glum an element of bitterness or misanthropy <morose job seekers who are inured to rejection>. surly implies gruffness and sullenness of speech or manner <a typical surly teenager>. sulky suggests childish resentment expressed in peevish sullenness <grew sulky after every spat>. crabbed applies to a forbidding morose harshness of manner <the school's notoriously crabbed headmaster>. saturnine describes a heavy forbidding aspect or suggests a bitter disposition <a saturnine cynic always finding fault>. gloomy implies a depression in mood making for seeming sullenness or glumness <a gloomy mood ushered in by bad news>.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. & n. --adj. 1 morose, resentful, sulky, unforgiving, unsociable. 2 a (of a thing) slow-moving. b dismal, melancholy (a sullen sky). --n. (in pl., usu. prec. by the) archaic a sullen frame of mind; depression. Derivatives: sullenly adv. sullenness n. Etymology: 16th-c. alt. of ME solein f. AF f. sol SOLE(3)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Sullen Sul"len, n. 1. One who is solitary, or lives alone; a hermit. [Obs.] --Piers Plowman. 2. pl. Sullen feelings or manners; sulks; moroseness; as, to have the sullens. [Obs.] --Shak.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Sullen Sul"len, a. [OE. solein, solain, lonely, sullen; through Old French fr. (assumed) LL. solanus solitary, fr. L. solus alone. See Sole, a.] 1. Lonely; solitary; desolate. [Obs.] --Wyclif (Job iii. 14). 2. Gloomy; dismal; foreboding. --Milton. Solemn hymns so sullen dirges change. --Shak. 3. Mischievous; malignant; unpropitious. Such sullen planets at my birth did shine. --Dryden. 4. Gloomily angry and silent; cross; sour; affected with ill humor; morose. And sullen I forsook the imperfect feast. --Prior. 5. Obstinate; intractable. Things are as sullen as we are. --Tillotson. 6. Heavy; dull; sluggish. ``The larger stream was placid, and even sullen, in its course.'' --Sir W. Scott. Syn: Sulky; sour; cross; ill-natured; morose; peevish; fretful; ill-humored; petulant; gloomy; malign; intractable. Usage: Sullen, Sulky. Both sullen and sulky show themselves in the demeanor. Sullenness seems to be an habitual sulkiness, and sulkiness a temporary sullenness. The former may be an innate disposition; the latter, a disposition occasioned by recent injury. Thus we are in a sullen mood, and in a sulky fit. No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows; The dreaded east is all the wind that blows. --Pope. -- Sul"len*ly, adv. -- Sul"len*ness, n.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Sullen Sul"len, v. t. To make sullen or sluggish. [Obs.] Sullens the whole body with . . . laziness. --Feltham.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Someone who is sullen is bad-tempered and does not speak much. The offenders lapsed into a sullen silence... ADJ

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Cross, morose, sulky, sour, moody. 2. Gloomy, dismal, sombre, dark, funereal, mournful, foreboding, lowering, cheerless. 3. Heavy, dull, sluggish, slow, gloomy. 4. Obstinate, intractable, stubborn, refractory, perverse, vexatious. 5. Mischievous, malignant, baleful, unpropitious, evil, inauspicious, malign, sinister, unlucky.

Moby Thesaurus

antisocial, at odds, autistic, averse, bad-tempered, balking, balky, bashful, beetle-browed, bigoted, black, black-browed, brooding, broody, bulldogged, bulletheaded, bullheaded, cantankerous, case-hardened, chapfallen, choleric, churlish, close, contrary, crabbed, crabby, cranky, crestfallen, cross, cross-grained, crotchety, crusty, cursory, cynical, dark, dejected, depressed, depressing, differing, difficult, disagreeing, disinclined, dismal, disobedient, dissociable, dogged, dogmatic, dour, dreary, dumpish, dyspeptic, fanatic, forced, fractious, fretful, froward, frowning, funereal, gloomy, glowering, glum, grim, grum, grumpy, hardheaded, headstrong, hostile, ill-humored, ill-natured, ill-tempered, incompatible, indisposed, indocile, insociable, intolerant, involuntary, irascible, long-faced, lowering, lugubrious, malevolent, malicious, malign, mean, melancholy, moodish, moody, mopey, moping, mopish, morose, mulish, mumpish, mutinous, nongregarious, obstinate, opinionated, opposed, ornery, out of humor, out of sorts, overzealous, peevish, perfunctory, persevering, pertinacious, perverse, pessimistic, petulant, pigheaded, pouting, recalcitrant, refractory, resistant, restive, runty, saturnine, scowling, self-contained, self-sufficient, self-willed, set, snug, socially incompatible, sour, splenetic, stiff-necked, strong-willed, strongheaded, stubborn, stuffy, sulking, sulky, surly, temperamental, tenacious, tenebrose, tenebrous, ugly, unclubbable, uncommunicative, uncompanionable, uncongenial, unconsenting, uncooperative, unfriendly, ungenial, unregenerate, unsociable, unsocial, unwilling, wayward, willful, wrongheaded