DOUR

dark, dour, glowering, glum, moody, morose, saturnine, sour, sullen

(adjective) showing a brooding ill humor; “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”

dour, forbidding, grim

(adjective) harshly uninviting or formidable in manner or appearance; “a dour, self-sacrificing life”; “a forbidding scowl”; “a grim man loving duty more than humanity”; “undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw”- J.M.Barrie

dogged, dour, persistent, pertinacious, tenacious, unyielding

(adjective) stubbornly unyielding; “dogged persistence”; “dour determination”; “the most vocal and pertinacious of all the critics”; “a mind not gifted to discover truth but tenacious to hold it”- T.S.Eliot; “men tenacious of opinion”

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology

Adjective

dour (comparative dourer or more dour, superlative dourest or most dour)

Stern, harsh and forbidding.

Unyielding and obstinate.

Expressing gloom or melancholy; sullenly unhappy.

Synonyms

• (stern, harsh): forbidding, harsh, severe, stern

• (unyielding): obstinate, stubborn, unyielding

• (expressing gloom): dejected, gloomy, melancholic, sullen

Anagrams

• doru, ordu

Source: Wiktionary


Dour, a. Etym: [Cf. F. dur, L. durus.]

Definition: Hard; inflexible; obstinate; sour in aspect; hardy; bold. [Scot.] A dour wife, a sour old carlin. C. Reade.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

29 May 2025

CRITICAL

(adjective) characterized by careful evaluation and judgment; “a critical reading”; “a critical dissertation”; “a critical analysis of Melville’s writings”


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Coffee Trivia

Contrary to popular belief, coffee beans are not technically beans. They are referred to as such because of their resemblance to legumes. A coffee bean is a seed of the Coffea plant and the source for coffee. It is the pit inside the red or purple fruit, often referred to as a cherry. Just like ordinary cherries, the coffee fruit is also a so-called stone fruit.

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