dynamic
toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

dour
in a sentence

show 112 more with this conextual meaning
  • Shelley was the store manager, and her slumped shoulders and dour expression were as much a part of her uniform as the blue polo shirts we all had to wear.†   (source)
  • His visor had been removed from his helm, to better show his dour face; pouchy bags under his eyes, a wide sour mouth, rusty hair spotted with grey.†   (source)
  • Hermione bore up reasonably well on those nights when they managed to scavenge nothing but berries or stale biscuits, her temper perhaps a little shorter than usual and her silences dour.†   (source)
  • Constance resembled a wet hen — same shape, same dour crankiness, and only slightly larger — but Kate smiled when he came in, and the sight of her sunny face gave Reynie a pinprick of hope.†   (source)
  • But he'd never tell that to the dour nun in the principal's office.†   (source)
  • Four new passengers were embarking for the trip up the river, a shabby, dour-looking man and wife and their scrawny little girl clutching a wooden toy, and a tall, angular young man with a pale narrow face and shoulder-length fair hair under a wide-brimmed black hat.†   (source)
  • She was younger than Shawna but seemed older—a plump body with dour, wide-spaced mounds for breasts.†   (source)
  • With a dour expression on her face, she pushed past Basta and put a mug and a thermos jug on the floor.†   (source)
  • Martin Silenus's gaze never left Sad King Billy's dour visage.†   (source)
  • At first there was passion far beyond what the dour gossip of older women had led Clara to expect, but their relationship chilled rapidly.†   (source)
  • "Go ahead," the operator said dourly.†   (source)
  • The first time he saw her, he formed an impression that did not change for many years: She was a dour, bookish, geeky type who dressed like she was interviewing for a job as an accountant at a funeral parlor.†   (source)
  • In their jeans and winter coats, with assorted weapons at their sides, they were the dourest bunch of marshmallow roasters I had ever seen.†   (source)
  • There was a murmur of laughter, quickly smothered by dour looks from the other students.†   (source)
  • Frederic was sitting alone, looking vaguely dour and uncommunicative.†   (source)
  • The old store's wood shelves were painted a dour green, but stuffed with a rainbow assortment of canned food and bags of chips, pasta, and even marshmallows.†   (source)
  • Was it the years of living alone with the dour Maggie that had changed her into a more brightly colored version of her mother?†   (source)
  • Farinachi, a dour, stooped Sicilian, wore a vest under his leather apron.†   (source)
  • Together, Kenyon and Nancy had made a paint-splattered attempt to deprive the basement room of its un-removable dourness, and neither was aware of failure.†   (source)
  • Towering before her is Scripture Cathedral, a soaring, drywall barn built a few years ago where the dour, brick Scripture Church once stood.†   (source)
  • And how suitably dour they were, as if measuring the Depression's effects on the streets below—she guessed the building had been erected around that time.†   (source)
  • Not every result of the Chicago cheating analysis was so dour.†   (source)
  • His face was dour, and he glanced at the chaplain without recognition as the two drew close on the staircase and prepared to pass.†   (source)
  • A short, dour man dressed in a baggy gray suit stretching over the soles of his canvas shoes, he said nothing.†   (source)
  • Try not to look so dour, Gemma.†   (source)
  • The next one was led by the dour German nun who ran the chapel and was so vague it's hard to recall but dealt with "personal growth."†   (source)
  • But the jokey sweetness was still intact: Franklin was as lighthearted as Ira was dour.†   (source)
  • Ajax's dour, battle-scarred face broke out in a rogue's grin.†   (source)
  • "Sit down," said the dour skipper.†   (source)
  • Lavender Eyes Bruenor had regained his dour visage by the time he called on Wulfgar the following morning.†   (source)
  • Their expressions ran the gamut from dour to pleased, the children being the most animated, the grown women appearing the most suspicious, as though they believed their lives were to be taken, instead of simply their photographs.†   (source)
  • Behind the bulletproof window sat a dour, pudgy, middle-aged man with a dark widow's-peak crew cut and a jaw full of tobacco.†   (source)
  • Zooey used his nail file in silence for a moment, his face singularly dour in expression.†   (source)
  • He was one of those large, dour men whose laughter was surprising in its infectiousness.†   (source)
  • She had a dour Presbyterian mind and a code of morals that pinned down and beat the brains out of nearly everything that was pleasant to do.†   (source)
  • Neither Hirluin the fair would return to Pinnath Gelin, nor Grimbold to Grimslade, nor Halbarad to the Northlands, dour-handed Ranger.†   (source)
  • But Sholom Weiss, a pallid dour thirtyish man with aggressive horn-rims and a green eyeshade, was such a startling double of every heavy, unbending, mirthless German bureaucrat and demi-monster she had known in years past that she had the weird sense that she had been thrust back into the Warsaw of the occupation.†   (source)
  • KELLER, [DOURLY]: Why do you wear them, the sun has been down for an hour.†   (source)
  • Then there was Benedict, tall and dour, thin, thin of body, thin of face, wide of mind.†   (source)
  • The guards, some of them, were dour and sadistic men, skilled in unusual and degrading punishments.†   (source)
  • "The dinner was bad and the toasts too numerous," Adams complained dourly in his diary that night.†   (source)
  • He held my friend's card in his hand, and he looked up with no very pleased expression upon his dour features.   (source)
  • The wooden portico was diminutive, but it stood in the dark like a dour sentinel.†   (source)
  • Maybe that warmth is genuine, maybe I should be ashamed of my dour, cynical thoughts.†   (source)
  • That afternoon the dour Braavosi envoy turned up for his audience.†   (source)
  • 'It's all for the officials,' added the co-pilot dourly.†   (source)
  • He studied the hooting crowd dourly before taking a deep bow.†   (source)
  • "Could be a hundred of them out there," said the black brother with the dour face.†   (source)
  • A dour Somali met us at the door and led us to a dining room six steps down from the front landing.†   (source)
  • Steelshanks Walton stood above them, tall and dour.†   (source)
  • It was strangely comforting to see Edd's dour face again.†   (source)
  • He beckoned to a dour northman in a studded brigantine.†   (source)
  • "I hope the Weeper burned the bodies," said the dour man, the one called Dolorous Edd.†   (source)
  • To ease his discomfort he brought her father's steward with him, dour Utherydes Wayn.†   (source)
  • The Ford stood tall and aloof and dour under the oak tree where Will had stopped it.†   (source)
  • Olivetti pursed his lips, looking dour.†   (source)
  • That prescient part of his mind saw her before he knew he was seeing her, and must surely have understood her before he knew he was understanding her , why else did he associate such dour, ominous images with her?†   (source)
  • The dour to the inn was standing open, and out of it at that moment came Jeremiah the peddler, with his pack on his back and his long walking-stick in his hand.†   (source)
  • Wading through the diapers, Shelley poked her finger into my chest and was about to say something dour when the PA system interrupted her.†   (source)
  • She enjoyed watching all the people too: dark solemn Asshai'i and tall pale Qartheen, the bright-eyed men of Yi Ti in monkey-tail hats, warrior maids from Bayasabhad, Shamyriana, and Kayakayanaya with iron rings in their nipples and rubies in their cheeks, even the dour and frightening Shadow Men, who covered their arms and legs and chests with tattoos and hid their faces behind masks.†   (source)
  • She had everything Somerset Maugham had ever written (once Paul found himself wondering dourly if she had John Fowles's first novel on her shelves and decided it might be better not to ask), and Paul began to work his way through the twenty-odd volumes that comprised Maugham's oeuvre, fascinated by the man's canny grasp of story values.†   (source)
  • In Graceland Cemetery, to the north, young couples raced their sleighs over the snow-heaped undulations, pulling their blankets especially tight as they passed the dark and dour tombs of Chicago's richest and most powerful men, the tombs' bleakness made all the more profound by their juxtaposition against the night-blued snow.†   (source)
  • — THOUGH I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SAY IT, I'M OVERJOYED TO see the dour, imposing lady that is Spence again.†   (source)
  • Jon was paired with dour Eddison Tollett, a squire grey of hair and thin as a pike, whom the other brothers called Dolorous Edd.†   (source)
  • Later, a dour warrior in fur and amber went from cookfire to cookfire, urging all the survivors to head north and take refuge in the valley of the Thenns.†   (source)
  • "We'll never find that one, and I'll be blamed," announced Edd Tollett, the dour grey-haired squire everyone called Dolorous Edd.†   (source)
  • Well, if it isn't my lady Dour!†   (source)
  • Almost every novitiate now has his or her visceral confirmation of the order of things-this dour man will carry forward the hard business hinted at in their welcome packets.†   (source)
  • "Do you know the difference between a wildling who's a friend to the Watch and one who's not?" asked the dour squire.†   (source)
  • The lawyer's sally induced guffaws, a courtroom flare-up that Judge Tate's dour gaze soon extinguished.†   (source)
  • Zooey turned and looked at her, and—unpredictable young man—made a very dour face, as though he had suddenly eschewed any and all forms of levity.†   (source)
  • That girl wears a dour expression; still another stirs her tea far too long, while one unfortunate girl daringly ventures that she finds the rain "romantic," and is told quite firmly that the rain is good only for the roses and for bringing on rheumatism.†   (source)
  • Mr. Hartsfield softened for an instant, his watery eyes glistening, but then he snapped back to his usual dourness.†   (source)
  • Slender, a pale young seafarer with an elongated face of slightly dour saintliness, he stood with an arm around the waist of the girl he had married and, in Mrs. Johnson's estimation, ought not to have, for they had nothing in common-the serious Jimmy and this teen-age San Diego fleet-follower whose glass beads reflected a now long-faded sun.†   (source)
  • Dressed in black, pushing food around on her plate, she looked like a dour and distant cousin of the Genet I knew—she'd hardly left the house since Zemui's death.†   (source)
  • Qyburn was in attendance, and dour Walton in his mail shirt and greaves, plus a dozen Freys, all brothers, half brothers, and cousins.†   (source)
  • The Corner Institutional dourness and cheerful domesticity coexist on the fourth floor of the Finney County Courthouse.†   (source)
  • "He's the man you want in front when the foes are in the field," Edd would say in his usual dour voice.†   (source)
  • Marsh entered snuffling, Yarwyck dour.†   (source)
  • There came Legolas, and Gimli wielding his axe, and Halbarad with the standard, and Elladan and Elrohir with stars on their brow, and the dour-handed Dunedain, Rangers of the North, leading a great valour of the folk of Lebennin and Lamedon and the fiefs of the South.†   (source)
  • Dour, bearded, hair unshorn or ludicrously cropped, they looked like ghost-town characters in a Western movie, except they were not so well fed as Hollywood extras, and their clothing, flowered sports shirts, shorts, or slacks, plaid or straw-peaked caps, was incongruous.†   (source)
  • Vachel Lindsay's poem expressed clearly the helplessness and bitterness with which the South and West watched the steadily increasing financial domination of the East: And all these in their helpless days By the dour East oppressed, Mean paternalism Making their mistakes for them, Crucifying half the West, Till the whole Atlantic coast Seemed a giant spiders' nest.†   (source)
  • The Irish do have a despairing quality of gaiety, but they have also a dour and brooding ghost that rides on their shoulders and peers in on their thoughts.†   (source)
  • And during the day McEachern watched him with dour and grudging approval.†   (source)
  • It was light pastry, not the dour unleavened bread of old Dunlo-thian.†   (source)
  • Being poor white, they were not even accorded the grudging respect that Angus MacIntosh's dour independence wrung from neighboring families.†   (source)
  • With no sound in their ears save the fierce gusts of wind and their own crunching footsteps, they felt themselves at the mercy of something dour and savagely melancholy—a mood in which both earth and air were saturated.†   (source)
  • A tall, dour white woman talked to me.†   (source)
  • And the weary craftiness on the face of the great Jew, Disraeli; the terrible skull-grin of Voltaire; the mad ranting savagery of Ben Jonson's; the dour wild agony of Carlyle's; and the faces of Heine, and Rousseau, and Dante, and Tiglath-Pileser, and Cervantes—these were all faces on which life had fed.†   (source)
  • "You get him," he repeated dourly.†   (source)
  • The next thing after was a piece of dour misfortune, the like of that which has been on me all the while.†   (source)
  • The Boss was dour as a teetotal-ing Scot, and the office force walked on tiptoe and girls suddenly burst out crying over their typewriters after they had been in to take dictation and state officials coming out of the inner room laid a handkerchief to the pallid brow with one hand and with the other groped across the long room under the painted eyes of all the gilt-framed dead governors.†   (source)
  • "What can you expect from the fellow?" said dour Major Callendar.†   (source)
  • "No, sir, not that I know of," replied Gilbert dourly.†   (source)
  • "Don't you know that it is?" insisted Mason, darkly and dourly.†   (source)
  • He managed to continue work till nine o'clock, and then marched dumb and dour to his chamber.†   (source)
  • She talked only of the weather, the flowers, but there was a rising gaiety in her which stirred even the dour Cecil Twyford.†   (source)
  • In all that time, sir, ye should have learned to know me: I'm a stiff man, and a dour man; but for what ye say the now—fie, fie!†   (source)
  • Dour spruces, symmetrical and gigantic, stood solitary and in small groups along the bottom of the gorge and farther up the slopes.†   (source)
  • True, the Terry who went off to the artillery did not look upon him dourly, but Major Rippleton Holabird became erect and stiff when they passed in the corridor.†   (source)
  • To him, in spite of the dour burden of Roberta, which for this one week-end at least he could lay aside, it was as though he were in Paradise.†   (source)
  • And as for getting along," she went on, noting a sudden dour shadow that passed over Clyde's face like a cloud, "why we could always find something to do—I know I could, anyhow, once the baby is born."†   (source)
  • He turned to me, and gave me the closest thing I had ever seen to a smile on his dour countenance.†   (source)
  • Murtagh's dour face remained unchanged, but a faint gleam showed in his eye, nonetheless.†   (source)
  • Our guide, despite his dour appearance, was knowledgeable and talkative, pointing out the islands, castles, and ruins that rimmed the long, narrow loch.†   (source)
  • Murtagh's expression was the same as always: grim-mouthed and dour, narrow chin receding into the grimy neck of his shirt.†   (source)
  • A wavering outline resolved itself into the dour figure of Murtagh, staring disapprovingly down at me from the foot of the bed.†   (source)
  • The guide, a dour-looking little man in weather-beaten cotton shirt and twill trousers, stowed the picnic hamper tidily beneath the seat, and offered me a callused hand down into the well of the boat.†   (source)
  • It smelt delicious—some sort of stew—and I eagerly accepted the invitation, ignoring Murtagh's dour speculations as to the basic nature of the beast that had provided the stewmeat.†   (source)
  • I had seldom seen him with anything more than a sort of patient dourness showing on his features, but now he positively glowed with suppressed excitement.†   (source)
  • A dour man in sweat-stained work shirts, baggy trousers held up by yellow galluses, he worked in the fields, did some carpentry, turned up on a building job occasionally.†   (source)
  • The dour recluse still there (he has his cake) and the douce youngling, minion of pleasure, Phedo's toyable fair hair.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)