MOROSE

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Showing a brooding ill humor

Example:

a sullen crowd

Synonyms:

dark; dour; glowering; glum; moody; morose; saturnine; sour; sullen

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

ill-natured (having an irritable and unpleasant disposition)

Derivation:

moroseness (a sullen moody resentful disposition)

moroseness (a gloomy ill-tempered feeling)

Credits

Context examples:

And Holmes’ fears came to be realised, for from that day to this no word has ever been heard either of the beautiful woman, the sinister German, or the morose Englishman.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He had been with me for two years, and came with the best references, but he was a silent, morose man, not very popular either with masters or boys.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was a gloomy, morose fellow, and he showed Curly plainly that all he desired was to be left alone, and further, that there would be trouble if he were not left alone.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The clay of White Fang had been moulded until he became what he was, morose and lonely, unloving and ferocious, the enemy of all his kind.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Mr. Micawber is morose.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Silence! ejaculated a voice; not that of Miss Miller, but one of the upper teachers, a little and dark personage, smartly dressed, but of somewhat morose aspect, who installed herself at the top of one table, while a more buxom lady presided at the other.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He said, “they commonly acted like mortals till about thirty years old; after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both till they came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confession: for otherwise, there not being above two or three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form a general observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passions. But those objects against which their envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever they see a funeral, they lament and repine that others have gone to a harbour of rest to which they themselves never can hope to arrive. They have no remembrance of anything but what they learned and observed in their youth and middle-age, and even that is very imperfect; and for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common tradition, than upon their best recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in others.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

As it was, he suffered a long term of imprisonment and afterwards returned to England a morose and disappointed man.