sullen.
Having a brooding ill temper; sulky.
Meaning & usage
Having a brooding ill temper; sulky.
Gloomy; dismal; foreboding.
a sullen atmosphere
Sluggish; slow.
Mischievous; malignant; unpropitious.
Obstinate; intractable.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English soleyn, from Anglo-Norman soleyn (“alone”), from Old French sole (“single, sole, alone”), from Latin sōlus (“by oneself alone”). The change in meaning from "single" to morose occurred in Middle English.
One who is solitary, or lives alone; a hermit.
Sullen feelings or manners; sulks; moroseness.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English soleyn, from Anglo-Norman soleyn (“alone”), from Old French sole (“single, sole, alone”), from Latin sōlus (“by oneself alone”). The change in meaning from "single" to morose occurred in Middle English.
To make sullen.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English soleyn, from Anglo-Norman soleyn (“alone”), from Old French sole (“single, sole, alone”), from Latin sōlus (“by oneself alone”). The change in meaning from "single" to morose occurred in Middle English.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.