Morose

//məˈɹəʊs// adj

adj ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Sullen, gloomy; showing a brooding ill humour.

    "If there is any boy or man who loves to be melancholy and morose, and who cannot enter with kindly sympathy into the regions of fun, let me seriously advise him to shut my book and put it away. It is not meant for him."

Adjective
  1. 1
    showing a brooding ill humor wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
gloweringglumgruffmelancholymoodysulky

Example

More examples

"The language of the beasts became clear to little Claus; but he never could understand their sulky and morose tempers."

Etymology

From French morose, from Latin mōrōsus (“particular, scrupulous, fastidious, self-willed, wayward, capricious, fretful, peevish”), from mōs (“way, custom, habit, self-will”). See moral.

Related phrases

morose delectation

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