sultry
Americanadjective
-
oppressively hot and close or moist; sweltering.
a sultry day.
- Synonyms:
- humid, stifling, oppressive
-
oppressively hot; emitting great heat.
the sultry sun.
-
characterized by or associated with sweltering heat.
sultry work in the fields.
-
characterized by or arousing passion.
sultry eyes.
adjective
-
(of weather or climate) oppressively hot and humid
-
characterized by or emitting oppressive heat
-
displaying or suggesting passion; sensual
sultry eyes
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of sultry
Explanation
Stifling, humid and downright oppressive, sultry is an adjective that has everything to do with sweltering heat and a definite need for a tall glass of iced tea. You know how movies about the Old South always show people wilting in the shade of their front porches, mopping their damp brows? Well that's because of the sultry summer weather. A sultry atmosphere is a thick, almost swampy feeling. And all that heavy heat can certainly get passions stirring — "a sultry look" is one that happens to express steamy desire.
Vocabulary lists containing sultry
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Term-ometer: Synonyms for "Hot"
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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
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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:
The sultry “Hard Times” combines a slow cha-cha-cha rhythm with strings, horns, electric keyboards and a reverb-heavy bass.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026
Porter originally wrote it as a sultry bolero, but Sinatra and Riddle supercharge it into one of the singer’s most celebrated uptempo showcases.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026
Even masala chai would lose its signature, sultry kick.
From Salon ● Jan. 25, 2026
He’s clearly having fun in his not-Redd Foxx role; she’s good sassy, sultry, but also sensitive company.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 5, 2025
When she came back to the porch she said, “We was gonna just have a cold piece ’cause it’s so sultry, but now I think I’ll cook.”
From "Sounder" by William H. Armstrong
Van Morrison’s Moondance, despite being constantly wrung out by classic-rock radio and adult-contemporary stations alike, still evokes the possibility offered by summertime’s shorter, sultrier nights.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 14, 2015
The air was sultrier than ever, heavy with fragrance and enervating with forebodings of a storm.
From A Transient Guest and Other Episodes by Edgar Saltus
The strip of blue sky was curtained over again, and all was dismal as before, though it grew sultrier every moment; and now and then a distant mutter shook the air to westward.
From Westward Ho!, or, the voyages and adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the county of Devon, in the reign of her most glorious majesty Queen Elizabeth by Charles Kingsley
Then—for thy shelter from life's sultrier suns, The oak of strength I set o'er joy that runs With brooklet glee from winds that grieve above.
From Song-Surf by Cale Young Rice
A yet sultrier warmth was bestowed by a goodly quantity of peat, which was crumbling to white ashes among the burning brands, and incensed the kitchen with its not ungrateful fragrance.
From The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The three hottest years in the past century have come in the past decade, and 1995 was the sultriest on record.
From Time Magazine Archive
Susan stepped into the tightly-closed, partially darkened parlor which never in the sultriest weather seemed wholly to lose the chill of its unwarmed winter days.
From Other People's Business The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale by Harriet L. Smith
The June day was at its sultriest hour.
From Whirligigs by O. Henry
It was the sultriest day of the whole season—surely they could not think of shutting up the second-floor back windows to-night!
From A Rogue's Life by Wilkie Collins
Consequently I gasped out something about its being the sultriest 47th of August in eighteen years, and plumped back into a chair opposite him.
From R. Holmes & Co. by John Kendrick Bangs
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.
