Crossword clues for sullen
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International 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.]
Lonely; solitary; desolate. [Obs.]
--Wyclif (Job iii. 14).-
Gloomy; dismal; foreboding.
--Milton.Solemn hymns so sullen dirges change.
--Shak. -
Mischievous; malignant; unpropitious.
Such sullen planets at my birth did shine.
--Dryden. -
Gloomily angry and silent; cross; sour; affected with ill humor; morose.
And sullen I forsook the imperfect feast.
--Prior. -
Obstinate; intractable.
Things are as sullen as we are.
--Tillotson. -
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. [1913 Webster] -- Sul"len*ly, adv. -- Sul"len*ness, n.
Sullen \Sul"len\, n.
One who is solitary, or lives alone; a hermit. [Obs.]
--Piers Plowman.pl. Sullen feelings or manners; sulks; moroseness; as, to have the sullens. [Obs.]
--Shak.
Sullen \Sul"len\, v. t. To make sullen or sluggish. [Obs.]
Sullens the whole body with . . . laziness.
--Feltham.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1570s, alteration of Middle English soleyn "unique, singular," from Anglo-French *solein, formed on the pattern of Old French solain "lonely," from soul "single," from Latin solus "by oneself, alone" (see sole (adj.)). The sense shift in Middle English from "solitary" to "morose" (i.e. "remaining alone through ill-humor") occurred late 14c. Related: Sullenly; sullenness.
Wiktionary
a. 1 Having a brooding ill temper; sulky. 2 gloomy; dismal; foreboding. 3 sluggish; slow. 4 (context obsolete English) Lonely; solitary; desolate. 5 (context obsolete English) Mischievous; malignant; unpropitious. 6 (context obsolete English) Obstinate; intractable. n. 1 (context obsolete English) One who is solitary, or lives alone; a hermit. 2 Sullen feelings or manners; sulks; moroseness.
WordNet
adj. 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]
darkened by clouds; "a heavy sky" [syn: heavy, lowering, threatening]
Wikipedia
Sullen may refer to:
- Sullens, Swiss municipality
- Squire Sullen and Kate Sullen, fictional characters in the 1707 comedy play The Beaux' Stratagem
Sullen was a punk rock band from St. Louis, Missouri, based around two singers and guitarists: Justin Slazinik and Shanna Kiel.
Usage examples of "sullen".
The slothful effeminacy of the former exposed them to the contempt, the sullen ferociousness of the latter excited the aversion, of the conquerors.
Cletia sat on one side of the fire, the Capidarans on the other, huddled under their collection of coats and blankets, with a sullen Balin in her corner.
Exhausted, sullen, and bereft for the moment of any other plan, the conjurer and the bird continued their journey.
Thither went Lieutenant Brack to treat with their commander, who found his mood of sullen despondency lifting as the conversation with his visitor progressed.
Farther out, Ryan thought for a moment that he spotted some vast creature moving through the sullen waves, broaching for a moment, then disappearing.
In a few minutes Company Bugler Anderson, sleepy-eyed and tousle-headed, came in looking sullen like a man who bet on red when the black had come up.
As I was not exactly the customer coachee was looking for, being at the time pretty well mounted, I thought it better to indulge him in the joke, particularly as any doubt on my part might have soured the whip, and made him sullen for the rest of the journey.
No one in the sullen, cowering crowd seemed to care enough about the stunned and beaten boy to interfere.
The band belonged to a regiment that had gone on a daylong route march, leaving their musicians to entertain the sullen Virginian townspeople.
The long imprisonment, the privations of hunger, the scourging by the elements, the death of four out of every five of our number had indeed dulled and stupefied us--bred an indifference to our own suffering and a seeming callosity to that of others, but there still burned in our hearts, and in the hearts of every one about us, a dull, sullen, smoldering fire of hate and defiance toward everything Rebel, and a lust for revenge upon those who had showered woes upon our heads.
Then I came on with the court but sat alone, like Dunster, I thought, in sullen isolation.
Apollo, which fades into the white marble of the Ethene temple, which fades into an aerial shot of the black flame in the black square of the Taurist community, and then to the closed and hammer-barred front view of the Thoradian mission under sullen clouds.
As usual, they were a mix of all races, though with a distinct Asian and African cast, here: Ethiops dark as night and brawny Nubians even darker, and fiat-faced fair-skinned Circassians and Avars and other sinewy northern folk, and some who might have been Persians or Indians, and even a sullen yellow-haired man who could have been a Briton or Teuton.
But in his countenance I saw a change: that looked desperate and brooding -- that reminded me of some wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen woe.
It was only when, to prevent his attempting prematurely to escape, Phillip assigned an elderly convict to act as his guardian and had one of his wrists fettered, that Manly became sullen and dejected .