dour

comparative dourer · comparative more dour · superlative dourest · superlative most dour

1. Stern, harsh and forbidding.

   The principal reason is that, in competition with modern road vehicles running over motorways, B.R. has a dour struggle to match the performance of its rivals cost-wise.

   1961 October, “Editorial: The importance of the "Roadrailer"”, in Trains Illustrated, page 577

   3 more examples

   I was reminded of the dour priests and salesmen of the nineteenth century who believed that the plebs wouldn’t be able to handle getting the vote, or a decent wage, or, least of all, leisure, and who backed the seventy-hour workweek as an efficacious instrument in the fight against liquor.

   2017, chapter 6, in Elizabeth Manton, transl., Utopia for Realists, Kindle edition, Bloomsbury Publishing, translation of Gratis geld voor iedereen by Rutger Bregman, page 149

   Hayek had contributed the foreword, in which he declared that “he got so fascinated” by the book—high praise from the dour Viennese sage—that he read it from start to finish in one sitting.

   2022, Gary Gerstle, chapter 4, in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order […] , New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, Part II. The Neoliberal Order, 1970–2020

   Tuchel arrived in Belgrade insisting England were ready to improve and show their quality after the dour victories that have characterised their World Cup qualification campaign.

   2025 September 9, Phil McNulty, “Serbia 0-5 England”, in BBC Sport

   Synonyms: forbidding, harsh, severe, stern

2. Unyielding and obstinate.

   Synonyms: stubborn

3. Expressing gloom or melancholy.

   Synonyms: dejected, gloomy, melancholic, sullen

plural dours

1. alternativeAlternative form of daur.

   The detachment that went out the day before yesterday on a dour have not returned: the party consisted of 200 Highlanders and 100 Sikhs, also twenty horsemen.

   1857, Allen's Indian Mail and Register of Intelligence, page 545