Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Marked by sternness or harshness; forbidding: a dour, self-sacrificing life.
- adj. Silently ill-humored; gloomy: the proverbially dour New England Puritan.
- adj. Sternly obstinate; unyielding: a dour determination.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Hard; inflexible; obstinate; bold; hardy.
Wiktionary
- adj. Stern, harsh and forbidding.
- adj. Unyielding and obstinate.
- adj. Expressing gloom or melancholy; sullenly unhappy.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Hard; inflexible; obstinate; sour in aspect; hardy; bold.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. showing a brooding ill humor
- adj. harshly uninviting or formidable in manner or appearance
- adj. stubbornly unyielding
Etymologies
- Middle English, possibly from Middle Irish dúr, probably from Latin dūrus, hard; see deru- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“In previous years, Arsenal were known as a dour, if effective, outfit, masters at eking out a 1-0 victory.”
The Guardian: Arsène Wenger: the blinkered visionary | Observer profile
“The gray people, as a friend of mine called the dour-looking youths of the downtown arts crowd, stuffed into the room on old folding chairs and splintering benches, everyone stepping carefully amid broken floorboards and keeping one wary eye on the wires and pipes hanging from the ceiling.”
“His sober replacement, Gordon Brown -- a man whose name rarely appears in print without the adjective "dour" -- is already more popular.”
“Don't just pull on your beer-stained jeans and set your scruffy mug on "dour" - show some pizzazz, some pep.”
“This straight-faced stand-up comedian became nationally known as the dour, intellectual cop Detective Sergeant Dietrich on Barney Miller, and went on to a long career as a popular supporting comedy player, most recently seen in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.”
The Huffington Post: Tallulah Morehead: Dead Folks 2010: Everyone's Pushing Up Roses
“Pianist Alexander Melnikov's brilliant new recording should convince any holdouts that Shostakovich's massive 150-minute set is far from what has occasionally been called dour and academic.”
“Incidentally, her character has been described as dour and humourless in the first season of 'Space: 1999', but she became more playful in the second season.”
“Sorry to be dour, which is not my wont, but we are smack in the last quarter of what Murdoch's Wall Street Journal called "a wild year so far," and let me warn you to be happy with what you have -- just like I am.”
“NEW YORK - Wendy's new CEO on Monday called the dour results of the past few years "self-inflicted wounds" and vowed to do better, laying...”
“Tantawi must go on trial for this," said another man, referring to the dour army commander who stepped in last year to run Egypt when Mubarak was forced out.”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dour’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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3/4 year Vocab List
garbled, verbose, behoove, runt, douse, stipulate, condolence, incongruous, mundane, euphemism, brusque, labyrinth and 96 more...
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3/4 year Vocab List
lackluster, reprimand, loathe, abhor, willful, ample, tremulous, ominous, subtle, rescind, redundant, pretentious and 96 more...
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truman486's list
Masterbatory Aids
ensorcelled, scintilla, maudlin, lugubrious, frisson, praxis, copasetic, crotch, corollary, bandy, undulating, anthropomorphic and 65 more...
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March 2012
panache, evanescent, erogenous, vestibule, malfeasance, lacuna, blithering, incubate, breech, tabernacle, pearly, upholstery and 79 more...
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Kingly epithets
Take one of CharlesFerdinand's excellent Merovingians or Goths, add a "the" and one of these descriptors, and presto, a character for your long-planned spoof fantasy novel.
unlikely, chuckleheaded, aloof, lacklustre, slow, murky, neurotic, clichéd, pediculous, dour, bungling, dandy and 23 more...
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Dean Koontz Life Expectancy
Words I'm learning or investigating that I found by reading Life Expectancy (not all words are in the book).
chutzpah, luminous, torchieres, dunderheaded, inane, lummox, fox-trot, rumba, cha-cha, tango, swing, flub and 37 more...
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stubborn
contumacious-resisting authority
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Words with more than one "correct" pronunciation
Words that have more than one widely accepted pronunciation
jorge999 don't let the dour
hit you in the ass Nov 6, 2009
seanahan I tend to think of WordNet 5 and 6 when this word comes up. Sep 23, 2008
yarb It doesn't mean absence of intelligence. Wordnet definitions 3, 5 and 6 are about right. Sep 22, 2008
amun.x dour means absence of intellegence.Or absence of personality. Sep 22, 2008