sullen Meaning, Definition & Usage

adjective satellite showing a brooding ill humor
saturnine; dour; morose; sour; dark; glum; glowering; moody.
- a dark scowl
- the proverbially dour New England Puritan
- a glum, hopeless shrug
- he sat in moody silence
- a morose and unsociable manner
- a saturnine, almost misanthropic young genius"- Bruce Bliven
- a sour temper
- a sullen crowd
adjective satellite darkened by clouds
heavy; lowering; threatening.
- a heavy sky

OE. solein, solain, lonely, sullen; through Old French fr. (assumed) LL. solanus solitary, fr. L. solus alone. See Sole, a.

Lonely; solitary; desolate. Obs. Wyclif (Job iii. 14).
Gloomy; dismal; foreboding. Milton.
Solemn hymns so sullen dirges change. Shak.
Mischievous; malignant; unpropitious.
Such sullen planets at my birth did shine. Dryden.
Gloomily angry and silent; cross; sour; affected with ill humor; morose.
And sullen I forsook the imperfect feast. Prior.
Obstinate; intractable.
Things are as sullen as we are. Tillotson.
Heavy; dull; sluggish. "The larger stream was placid, and even sullen, in its course." Sir W. Scott. Syn. -- Sulky; sour; cross; ill-natured; morose; peevish; fretful; ill-humored; petulant; gloomy; malign; intractable. -- Sullen, Sulky. Both sullen and sulky show themselves in the demeanor. Sullenness seems to be an habitual sulkiness, and sulkiness a temporary sullenness. The former may be an innate disposition; the latter, a disposition occasioned by recent injury. Thus we are in a sullen mood, and in a sulky fit.
No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows; The dreaded east is all the wind that blows. Pope.
-- Sul"len*ly, adv. -- Sul"len*ness, n.

One who is solitary, or lives alone; a hermit. Obs. Piers Plowman.
pl. Sullen feelings or manners; sulks; moroseness; as, to have the sullens. Obs. Shak.

To make sullen or sluggish. Obs.
Sullens the whole body with . . . laziness. Feltham.