Part 961

4. Gloomily angry and silent; cross; sour; affected with ill humor; morose.

And sullen I forsook the imperfect feast.

Prior.

5. Obstinate; intractable.

Things are as sullen as we are.

Tillotson.

6. Heavy; dull; sluggish. "The larger stream was placid, and even sullen, in its course." Sir W. Scott.

Syn. -- Sulky; sour; cross; ill-natured; morose; peevish; fretful; ill-humored; petulant; gloomy; malign; intractable. -- Sullen, Sulky. Both sullen and sulky show themselves in the demeanor. Sullenness seems to be an habitual sulkiness, and sulkiness a temporary sullenness. The former may be an innate disposition; the latter, a disposition occasioned by recent injury. Thus we are in a sullen mood, and in a sulky fit.

No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows; The dreaded east is all the wind that blows.

Pope.

-- Sul"len*ly, adv. -- Sul"len*ness, n.

Sul"len, n. 1. One who is solitary, or lives alone; a hermit. [Obs.] Piers Plowman.

2. pl. Sullen feelings or manners; sulks; moroseness; as, to have the sullens. [Obs.] Shak.

Sul"len, v. t. To make sullen or sluggish. [Obs.]

Sullens the whole body with . . . laziness.

Feltham.

Sul"le*vate (?), v. t. [L. sublevare to raise up. Cf. Sublevation.] To rouse; to excite. [Obs.] Daniel.

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Sul"li*age (?), n. [Cf. Sullage, Suillage, or Sully, v. t.] Foulness; filth. [Obs.]

Though we wipe away with never so much care the dirt thrown at us, there will be left some sulliage behind.

Gov. of Tongue.

Sul"ly (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sullied (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Sullying (?).] [OE. sulien, AS. sylian, fr. sol mire; akin to G. suhle mire, sich, sühlen to wallow, Sw. söla to bemire, Dan. söle, Goth. bisaulijan to defile.] To soil; to dirty; to spot; to tarnish; to stain; to darken; -- used literally and figuratively; as, to sully a sword; to sully a person's reputation.

Statues sullied yet with sacrilegious smoke.

Roscommon.

No spots to sully the brightness of this solemnity.

Atterbury.

Sul"ly, v. i. To become soiled or tarnished.

Silvering will sully and canker more than gilding.