sullen

Word family

Related topics: Nature

sul·len /ˈsʌlən/ adjectiveadj

1 BAD-TEMPEREDangry and silent, especially because you feel life has been unfair to you 闷闷不乐的，怒的 → morose

Bill sat in sullen silence and refused to eat his lunch.

比尔一声不响，闷闷不乐地坐着，不肯吃午饭。

a look of sullen resentment

愤懑的眼神

2. literaryDNDARK a sullen sky or sea is dark and looks as if bad weather is coming 〔天空或大海〕灰蒙蒙的，阴沉的 SYN overcast

—sullenly adverbadv

—sullenness noun [uncountableU]

Examples from the Corpus

sullen• The girl was sullen and uncooperative.• The little children were crying constantly, and the older ones were sullen and withdrawn.• Starvation gave a gaunt menace to their sullen anger - and they were angry, he could not doubt it.• They were tolerating that redhead well enough in spite of his sullen bad manners.• Dick just sat there with a sullen expression on his face, refusing to speak.• The three boys should have been at school with their ragged clothes, crew cuts and sullen eyes.• a sullen gray sky• A sullen grey July gave way to sultry August.• It makes you think about those sullen high schoolers in a different light, see their lives along a time line.

Origin sullen

(1300-1400) Probably from an unrecorded Anglo-French solein “single, solitary, sullen”, from Latin solus “alone”

sul·len adjectiveadj

Chinese

Syllable

Corpus