DOUR • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Dour

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/dˈaʊər/ /daʊr/ Listen

Dour

adjective

Stubbornly unyielding. Synonyms: dogged, persistent, pertinacious, tenacious, unyielding. "Dour determination" , "The most vocal and pertinacious of all the critics" , "A mind not gifted to discover truth but tenacious to hold it" , "Men tenacious of opinion"

Harshly uninviting or formidable in manner or appearance. Synonyms: forbidding, grim. "A forbidding scowl" , "A grim man loving duty more than humanity" , "Undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw"

Showing a brooding ill humor. Synonyms: dark, glowering, glum, moody, morose, saturnine, sour, sullen. "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" , "A sour temper" , "A sullen crowd"

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"Dour" Quotes from Famous Books

... which he mentions in his letter to Mrs. Dunlop. In the progress of the building he not only took a lively interest, but actually worked with his own hands as a labourer, and gloried in his strength: 'he beat all for a dour lift.' But it was some time before he could settle down to the necessarily monotonous work of farming. 'My late scenes of idleness and dissipation,' he confessed to Dunbar, 'have enervated my mind to a considerable degree.' He was restless ...

— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... faces, bearded and dark, shape themselves out of the mist. There is one terrible creature, a skeleton of a man, with hollow cheeks and eyes sunk in his head. He also has a knife in his hand. On the right of the woman stands a tall man, very young, with flaxen hair, his face sullen and dour. The beautiful woman looks up at him in appeal. So does the man on the ground. This youth seems to be the arbiter of their fate. The crouching man draws closer and hides himself in the woman's skirts. The tall youth bends and tries to drag her away from him. ...

— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... front windows when William marched down the street singing (the word is a euphemism) his scout songs in his strong young voice. Curious smells emanated from the depth of the garden where William performed mysterious culinary operations. One old lady whose cat had disappeared looked at William with dour suspicion in her eye whenever he passed. Even the return of her cat a few weeks later did not remove the hostility from her gaze whenever it happened to ...

— More William • Richmal Crompton

... off to Black Hill. He would get this matter of Ian straight. It was early when he rode, and he came to Black Hill to find Mr. Touris and his sister yet at the breakfast-table. Mrs. Alison, who might have been up hours, sat over against a dour-looking master of the house who sipped his tea and crumbled his toast and had few good words for anything. But he was glad and said that he ...

— Foes • Mary Johnston

... damned failure. I've always been aware of that. And if I have held a feeling toward Donald MacRae these thirty-odd years, it was a feeling of envy. I would have traded places with him and been the gainer. I would have liked to tell him so. But I couldn't. He was a dour Scotchman and I suppose he hated me, although he kept it to himself. I suppose he loved Bessie. I know I did. Perhaps he cherished hatred of me for wrecking his dream, and so saw my hand in things where it never was. But he was wrong. Bessie would have wrecked it and him too. She would have whined ...

— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

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