SULLEN

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Darkened by clouds

Example:

a heavy sky

Synonyms:

heavy; lowering; sullen; threatening

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

cloudy (full of or covered with clouds)

Derivation:

sullenness (a gloomy ill-tempered feeling)

Sense 2

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:

sullenness (a sullen moody resentful disposition)

Credits

Context examples:

I saw a great yellow face, coarse-grained and greasy, with heavy, double-chin, and two sullen, menacing grey eyes which glared at me from under tufted and sandy brows.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He saw these other scenes through drifting vapors and swirls of sullen fog dissolving before shafts of red and garish light.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He laughed loudly at his own sally, but Hans's face was frozen into a sullen ghastliness that nothing less than the trump of doom could have broken.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

A sullen purple cloud had been drifting slowly up from the south-west—though I dare say that out of thirty thousand folk there were very few who had spared the time or attention to mark it.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Sometimes I could cope with the sullen despair that overwhelmed me, but sometimes the whirlwind passions of my soul drove me to seek, by bodily exercise and by change of place, some relief from my intolerable sensations.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

This was the pride of Dave as wheel-dog, of Sol-leks as he pulled with all his strength; the pride that laid hold of them at break of camp, transforming them from sour and sullen brutes into straining, eager, ambitious creatures; the pride that spurred them on all day and dropped them at pitch of camp at night, letting them fall back into gloomy unrest and uncontent.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

As Mr. Rushworth did not come, the injury was increased, and she had not even the relief of shewing her power over him; she could only be sullen to her mother, aunt, and cousin, and throw as great a gloom as possible over their dinner and dessert.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

He had lain like a Trojan behind his mattress in the gallery; he had followed every order silently, doggedly, and well; he was the oldest of our party by a score of years; and now, sullen, old, serviceable servant, it was he that was to die.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Once, ere he had ridden far, he heard behind him three deep, sullen shouts, which told him that his comrades had set their faces to the foe once more.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“David,” said Mr. Murdstone, one day after dinner when I was going to leave the room as usual; “I am sorry to observe that you are of a sullen disposition.”