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sullen, withdrawn, or moody, through or as if through resentment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 horse-drawn cart traditionally used for transport and recreation, but sulky racing is illegal on public roads in Ireland.
From BBC ● Jun. 25, 2023
A good while later, when they had been whistling and luring and following the disturbed and sulky hawk from tree to tree, Kay lost his temper.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
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
At the starting line, farther than the eye could see, a hundred thousand people lined up, on saddle horses, light rigs, buck-boards, spring wagons, sulkies.
From Time Magazine Archive
Each one of them put on colorful racing silks designed by Cassini and then climbed into harness sulkies.
From Time Magazine Archive
Houghton Sulky Co. of Marion, Ohio, specializes in horse-show buggies and racing sulkies, do not make ordinary "top" buggies.
From Time Magazine Archive
Many trotters in their sulkies and others driving very fast.
From A Journey to America in 1834 by Robert Heywood
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
At Cannon Street Station the stranger looked sulkier than Nina had ever seen him.
From Man and Maid by E. (Edith) Nesbit
As for Clemency, she bent over her plate and looked sulkier than ever.
From 'Doc.' Gordon by Frank T. (Frank Thayer) Merrill
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
Well, I should say you did," she sighed in mock heroism, "why, you are the crossest, and crankiest and sulkiest patient it was ever a woman's misfortune to nurse.
From Honor Edgeworth Ottawa's Present Tense by [pseud.] Vera
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
"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
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.
