Dour

//ˈdʊə// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Alternative form of daur. alt-of, alternative

    "The detachment that went out the day before yesterday on a dour have not returned: the party consisted of 200 Highlanders and 100 Sikhs, also twenty horsemen."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Stern, harsh and forbidding.

    "The principal reason is that, in competition with modern road vehicles running over motorways, B.R. has a dour struggle to match the performance of its rivals cost-wise."

  2. 2
    Unyielding and obstinate.
  3. 3
    Expressing gloom or melancholy.
Adjective
  1. 1
    showing a brooding ill humor wordnet
  2. 2
    harshly uninviting or formidable in manner or appearance wordnet
  3. 3
    stubbornly unyielding wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
dejectedforbiddinggloomygloweringharshobstinate

Example

More examples

"She gave us a dour look when we suggested that she apologize."

Etymology

Borrowed from Scots dour, possibly from Latin dūrus (“hard, stern”), via Middle Irish dúr. Compare French dur, Catalan dur, Italian duro, Portuguese duro, Romanian dur, Spanish duro. Doublet of dure.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.