Surliness

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The property of being surly. uncountable, usually

    "There has been an escalation of police harassment in the gay community: five brutal busts at the Crystal Hotel; the closing of sex clubs without notice; beatings of women outside Amelia's Bar in January and surliness and assaults against lesbians by off duty officers at Peg's Club later."

  2. 2
    a disposition to exhibit uncontrolled anger wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abruptnessacerbityaggressivenessbearishnessbeastlinessbiliousness

Example

More examples

"The old woman looked at me with surliness and mistrust."

Etymology

From surly + -ness.

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