sulky
Americanadjective
-
sulkier,
comparative
-
sulkiest
superlative
-
marked by or given to sulking; sullen.
- Antonyms:
- good-natured, good-humored
-
gloomy or dull.
sulky weather.
noun
-
sulkies
plural
adjective
-
sullen, withdrawn, or moody, through or as if through resentment
-
dull or dismal
sulky weather
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of sulky
1735–45; akin to Old English solcen- lazy (in solcennes laziness), Frisian (N dial.) sulkig sulky
Explanation
Someone who's sulky is gloomy, or quietly unhappy. A sulky teenager is generally not a lot of fun at a family party. Some people tend to be sulky when they're unhappy or disappointed — when you're sulky, you're not just sad, but you mope and frown and sigh. You might be sulky if your brother gets to travel to England and you don't, or if your coworker gets a promotion instead of you. Sulky probably comes from an Old English word, asolcen, "idle, lazy, or slow," which has a Proto-Germanic root.
Vocabulary lists containing sulky
Emotions on Display
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
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The Bridge Home
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
This is all so he can coddle his sulky, wild teenage son while expecting Carrie to limit all extracurricular cuddles to her adopted kitty, Shoe.
From Salon ● May 29, 2025
No sniggering jokes now about princely flings and sulky princesses and body doubles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 24, 2024
Dr. Ash clearly doesn’t take his son’s career seriously, and in just a few days Jed seems to regress to a kind of sulky adolescence.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 4, 2023
A sulky is a small cart on two wheels attached to the back of the horse which will accommodate one or two people.
From BBC ● Mar. 8, 2023
Pulling Laurie along in the sulky, Francie went over for a last look at her old school.
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
Often, Clarence and his neighbors got their workhorses together, attached them to sulkies and trotted them around to see which was fastest.
From New York Times ● Nov. 2, 2011
In the draw for positions, important in trotting, Mary Reynolds got third place from the rail in the front row of seven sulkies.
From Time Magazine Archive
He drew a second-tier starting position, came from behind a scrambled crush of onrushing sulkies to get clear, then settled down to coast home.
From Time Magazine Archive
Twelve sulkies pulled by seven colts, two geldings and three fillies circled on Goshen's drying track in systematic confusion for the start of the first heat.
From Time Magazine Archive
Three sulkies came on the track, the driver sitting on a little tray just over his horse's tail, and between two tall, slender wheels.
From Two Years in Oregon by Wallis Nash
Most of the so-called Musketeers I spoke to came from Twitter, their central battleground, usually after they replied to one of Musk’s sulkier tweets.
From The Verge ● Jun. 26, 2018
The producers first hoped to cast Ryan Gosling, but he would have made Christian sulkier, more brooding, more Heathcliff.
From Time ● Feb. 12, 2015
And he half knew that it wasn't a success and then became sulkier and more awkward than ever.
From "The Horse and His Boy" by C.S. Lewis
And Tom went home sulkier than a bear: but he did not let his father find out his trouble.
From Two Years Ago, Volume II. by Charles Kingsley
The girl was sitting where we had left her, and sulkier than ever.
From Tish by Mary Roberts Rinehart
The sulkiest tree that I know is the silver beech.
From Selections from Previous Works and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals by Samuel Butler
Poker’s bosom friend, Dumps, was so named because he had the sulkiest expression of countenance that ever fell to the lot of a dog.
From The World of Ice by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
It was the sulkiest hour of the day.
From South Wind by Norman Douglas
"Have a care of the poor brute, friend!" he cried genially to Diccon, whose looks were of the sulkiest.
From To Have and to Hold by Mary Johnston
A delicious salty air, like the breath of perpetual spring, blew in, tingling the skin of the sulkiest adventurer with delight in this virgin world.
From Heroes of the Middle West The French by Mary Hartwell Catherwood
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
