dour [door, douuhr, dou-er] SynonymsExamplesWord Origin adjective
- sullen; gloomy: The captain’s dour look depressed us all.
- severe; stern: His dour criticism made us regret having undertaken the job.
- Scot. (of land) barren; rocky, infertile, or otherwise difficult or impossible to cultivate.
Origin of dour 1325–75; Middle English Latin dūrus dure1 Related formsdour·ly, adverbdour·ness, nounSynonyms for dour 1. morose, sour, moody. See glum. Related Words for dourest sullen, morose, harsh, glum, surly, bleak, dismal, dreary, forbidding, hard, saturnine, severe, sour, stringent, sulky, ugly, unfriendly, crabbed Examples from the Web for dourest Historical Examples of dourest
Mr Adam Wilkie is a Scot of the dourest and most sepulchral appearance.
Ian Hay
The rôle fitted him very well, for he is the dourest politician in Yugoslavia—a perfectly honest, upright, injudicious patriot.
The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2
Henry Baerlein
And so we might, had it not been for the innate depravity of man as exemplified in the dourest driver that ever handled reins.
From Gretna Green to Land’s End
Katharine Lee Bates
And this is how one Englishwoman found out that the Scot is at once the dourest and the tenderest of men.
His Majesty Baby and Some Common People
Ian MacLaren
When he opened his cabin door he was confronted by the dourest aspect of the north that he had yet seen.
Bertrand W. Sinclair
British Dictionary definitions for dourest dour adjective
- sullen
- hard or obstinate
Derived Formsdourly, adverbdourness, nounWord Origin for dour C14: probably from Latin dūrus hard Word Origin and History for dourest dour adj.
mid-14c., “severe,” from Scottish and northern England dialect, probably from Latin durus “hard” (see endure); sense of “gloomy, sullen” is late 15c.