dour
- sullen; gloomy: The captain's dour look depressed us all.
- severe; stern: His dour criticism made us regret having undertaken the job.
- Scot. (of land) barren; rocky, infertile, or otherwise difficult or impossible to cultivate.
Origin of dour
Synonyms for dour
See more synonyms for on Thesaurus.comRelated Words for dour
sullen, morose, harsh, glum, surly, bleak, dismal, dreary, forbidding, hard, saturnine, severe, sour, stringent, sulky, ugly, unfriendly, crabbedExamples from the Web for dour
Contemporary Examples of dour
This decline, not surprisingly, has engendered a dour mood among much of the yeomanry.
And so the Libyan revolution was intoxicating, which is why the world watched it much more closely than the dour Syrian struggle.
Queen Victoria had the reputation of being a humorless, dour battleaxe, a Terminator in bombazine.
Then McQueen, who can come across as quite intense and dour, magnificently, jumped up and down.
The exuberant, indefatigable Democrat from Oregon and the dour, taciturn Republican from New Hampshire made an odd couple.
Historical Examples of dour
Grim, dour, silent, it waited for the beginning of hostilities.
Quaint CourtshipsVarious
He's jist as dour as ever, and as far as man could weel be frae them he cam o'!
Salted With FireGeorge MacDonald
When they were so poor and the future so dour, how could she keep from earning a little money?
In a Little TownRupert Hughes
A most curious, dour, and moody man, with a mind roving from key to key.
John SplendidNeil Munro
Nobody was surprised, since this dour officer had been in trouble before.
The Man Who KnewEdgar Wallace
dour
- sullen
- hard or obstinate
Word Origin for dour
Word Origin and History for dour
mid-14c., "severe," from Scottish and northern England dialect, probably from Latin durus "hard" (see endure); sense of "gloomy, sullen" is late 15c.