Surly

//ˈsɜːli// adj, adv

adj, adv ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Irritated, bad-tempered, unfriendly.
  2. 2
    Threatening, menacing, gloomy.

    "The surly weather put us all in a bad mood."

  3. 3
    Lordly, arrogant, supercilious. obsolete
Adjective
  1. 1
    inclined to anger or bad feelings with overtones of menace wordnet
Adverb
  1. 1
    In an arrogant or supercilious manner. obsolete

    "Against the Capitol I met a lion / Who glazed upon me, and went surly by / Without annoying me […]"

Synonyms

All synonyms
abruptaggressiveargumentativebad-temperedbearishbeastly

Example

More examples

"The food was horrible, and the waiter, surly."

Etymology

16th-century alteration of sirly, from sir + -ly.

Related phrases

bad tempered

More for "surly"

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