sullen
Americanadjective
-
showing irritation or ill humor by a gloomy silence or reserve.
- Antonyms:
- cheerful
-
persistently and silently ill-humored; morose.
- Synonyms:
- bad-tempered, cranky, sour, moody, sulky
- Antonyms:
- cheerful
-
indicative of gloomy ill humor.
-
gloomy or dismal, as weather or a sound.
-
sluggish, as a stream.
-
Obsolete. malignant, as planets or influences.
adjective
-
unwilling to talk or be sociable; sulky; morose
-
sombre; gloomy
a sullen day
-
literary sluggish; slow
a sullen stream
-
obsolete threatening
noun
Related Words
Other Word Forms
- sullenly adverb
- sullenness noun
- unsullen adjective
Etymology
Origin of sullen
First recorded in 1565–75; earlier sollen, solain, from Middle English solein(e), solain “sole, solitary, sullen,” possibly from Vulgar Latin sōlānus (unattested), from Latin sōlus “alone, only, single”
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.
He was almost sullen, which was very unlike him, but I understood now why he’d been quieter than usual.
From Literature
Two boys—tall, thickset teens—trailed behind her, clad in threadbare suits, looking bored and sullen.
From Literature
Saturday Caracas time when the detonations began, lighting up the sullen sky like a post-New Year’s fireworks display.
From Los Angeles Times
But to bemoan the barely audible banality of it all – the dull motives, the mumbled attempts to shift blame, the sullen complaints about prison life and unsatisfactory psychiatric evaluations - is to miss the truth.
From BBC
He said the teenager came across as an "unremarkable, sullen, untalkative, gawky teenage boy" during their sessions together.
From BBC
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.
