sullen

in a sentence

grouped by contextual meaning

A sullen crowd watched the execution.

He looked down shamefully at the sullen sight of Liesel's socks.  (source) Markus Zusak, The Book Thief, 2005

She was as crotchety and sullen as a three-legged mule, and I was not quite sure why.  (source) Sharon Creech, Walk Two Moons, 1994

Curly scowled at the sullen lump in the backseat.  (source) Carl Hiassen, Hoot, 2002

He crossed the street sullenly then, his hands jammed in his pockets.  (source) Mildred D. Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, 1976

Basil looked exactly like his father, but the clean, naturally curved lines of Butch's mouth seemed transformed into a mild sullenness when placed on Basil's face.†  (source) Gloria Naylor, The Women of Brewster Place, 1982

Whereas when you open your mouth, you come across more as sullen and hostile.  (source) Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, 2008

He followed sullenly.  (source) Madeline Miller, Circe, 2018

When I refused to be the child they knew and accepted me to be, I was called impudent and my muteness sullenness.†  (source) Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969

He chose instead to make a secret of his dark knowledge and express his rage obliquely, in silence and sullen withdrawal.  (source) Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild, 1996

I leaned back next to him sullenly.  (source) S. E. Hinton, The Outsiders, 1967

He glowered at me in the darkness, an impotent sullenness to his anger.†  (source) Pat Conroy, The Lords of Discipline, 1980

Mack grew sullen.  (source) Katherine Applegate, The One and Only Ivan, 2012

She rode off under a sullen sky.

The open sky beyond where in the distance the sullen sea lagged and shifted.  (source) Cormac McCarthy, The Road, 2006

His rounded helm gleamed a sullen red, and a pale pink cloak streamed from his shoulders.  (source) George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, 1999

They were dark things, black things: silhouettes of children on a gray field; black slow river; black tilting houses; black scratches of birds in a sullen sky.  (source) David Almond, Kit's Wilderness, 1999

...and rivers that poured out of echoing gorges to plunge sullenly into black depths.  (source) C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, 1953

A slight wind picked up and made the trees that grew in sullen clusters along the ridge sway menacingly.  (source) Walter Dean Myers, Fallen Angels, 1988

I see it as a night scene by El Greco: a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen, overhanging sky and a lustreless moon.  (source) F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925

Beyond the edge of the fields the sullen haze hung over earth and sky alike.  (source) Cormac McCarthy, The Road, 2006

She remembered Nan telling how the stone had melted and flowed like candlewax down the steps and in the windows, glowing a sullen searing red as it sought out Harren where he hid.  (source) George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, 1999

They stood watching the pale gray flakes sift down out of the sullen murk.  (source) Cormac McCarthy, The Road, 2006

Ahead, the night was a sullen red.  (source) George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, 1999

A tall gantry crane against the sullen sky.  (source) Cormac McCarthy, The Road, 2006

And, like bright metal on a sullen ground, My reformation, glittering o'er my fault, Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes Than that which hath no foil to set it off.  (source) William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, 1597

The sullen humidity saps my energy.

The big iron brazier was glowing red, filling the room with a sullen suffocating heat.  (source) George R. R. Martin, A Storm of Swords, 2000

Go venture shipwreck on the sullen coasts Where blackamoors make captive Christian men;  (source) T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, 1935

Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.  (source) Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843

The water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice.  (source) Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843

The walls rang with the sound of hammers, and burly men in leather aprons stood sweating in the sullen heat as they bent over bellows and anvils.  (source) George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, 1999

Thomas, Archbishop, leave us, leave us, leave sullen Dover, and set sail for France, Thomas our Archbishop still our Archbishop even in France.  (source) T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, 1935

Another poked at a sullen fire that was giving off more smoke than heat.  (source) George R. R. Martin, A Feast For Crows, 2005

The sullen wet heat of Volantis sapped his strength and left him feeling dirty.  (source) George R. R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons, 2011

Was it Mormont she was angry with, or this city with its sullen heat, its stinks and sweats and crumbling bricks?  (source) George R. R. Martin, A Storm of Swords, 2000

Ahead loomed the Great Sept of Baelor, with its magnificent dome and seven shining towers, but between her and the marble steps lay a sullen sea of humanity, brown and ragged and unwashed.  (source) George R. R. Martin, A Feast For Crows, 2005