moroseness

plural morosenesses

1. uncountableusuallyGloominess; sullenness; deep sadness.

   With the typical moroseness of a dipping twitcher he turned to me, looking cynically at my spotlight, and said, `I don't like your chances, mate.'

   2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 217

   2 more examples

   He acquired a slouching gait and ignoble look; his naturally reserved disposition was exaggerated into an almost idiotic excess of unsociable moroseness; and he took a grim pleasure, apparently, in exciting the aversion rather than the esteem of his few acquaintance.

   1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC

   Perhaps this excitement had begun much earlier, as I reflected afterwards when I recalled snatches of talk, and at the same time the increased quarrelsomeness of the convicts and the moroseness and peculiar irritability that had been conspicuous in them of late. I had put it down to the hard work, the long wearisome summer days, the unconscious dreams of the forest, and of freedom and the brief nights, in which it was difficult to get enough sleep.

   1920, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, translated by Constance Garnett, The House of the Dead

   Synonyms: morosity