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Sulky

adjective
(compar. sulkier; superl. sulkiest)
1.
Sullen or moody.  Synonym: huffish.
2.
Moving slowly.  Synonym: sluggish.
3.
Depressingly dark.  Synonyms: gloomful, glooming, gloomy.  "The glooming interior of an old inn" , "'gloomful' is archaic"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Sulky" Quotes from Famous Books



... putting her into print? We must get on up the hill. Ah! that is precisely what we are not likely to do! This horse, this beautiful and high-bred horse, well-fed, and fat and glossy, who stood prancing at our gate like an Arabian, has suddenly turned sulky. He does not indeed stand quite still, but his way of moving is little better—the slowest and most sullen of all walks. Even they who ply the hearse at funerals, sad-looking beasts who totter under black feathers, go faster. It is of no use to admonish him ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... was drifting down from the sulky sky. The air was damp and penetrating. By reason of the new snow the scent of Hazen's departing footsteps was blotted out. Hazen himself was no longer in sight. As Lass had made the journey from house to tracks with her head tucked confidingly under her kidnaper's ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... caught up to me—and he wasn't nice at all. He was worse to-day. We quarreled. I said I'd bet he'd never follow me again and he said he'd bet he would. Then he got sulky and hung back. I rode away, glad to be rid of him, and I climbed to a favorite place of mine. On my way home I saw Peg grazing on the rim of the creek, near that big spring-hole where the water's so deep and clear. And what do you think? There was Joel's head above the water. ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... horse trader, stood against a window, with his big straw hat on. His trotting sulky was outside. Gagnant, the established merchant, with contented reticence of well-to-do-ness, was remarking of some enterprise, "It won't pay its tobacco." Toutsignant, his insecure and overdaring young rival; who was bound to cut trade, ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... the trouble of calling him to tea; and, though he was very hungry, he was too sulky to come without being asked; so he lay under the table, and cried aloud till bedtime. But when it grew dark, he was afraid to stay by himself, for bad children are always fearful; so he came upstairs and ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... wildernesses, (no offence again,) I chanced to be by myself, and to lose my way, when I said to a shepherd-fellow, making my mouth as wide, and my voice as broad as I could, whore am I ganging till?—confound me if the fellow could answer me, unless, indeed, he was sulky, as the bumpkins will be now and then to the gentlemen ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... shoulders were rounded with the heavy pack of knotted sinews they carried. His legs were bowed from much riding. It was his boast that he could bend a silver dollar double in the palm of his hand. Men had seen him twist the tail rod of a wagon into a knot. Sober, he was a sulky, domineering brute with the instincts of a bully. In liquor, the least difference of opinion became for him a ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... swung over the sea with extended arms. Lingard caught up the sculls, and as the dinghy darted away from the brig's side he had a complete view of the lighted poop—Shaw leaning massively over the taffrail in sulky dejection, the flare bearers erect and rigid, the heads along the rail, the eyes staring after him above the bulwarks. The fore-end of the brig was wrapped in a lurid and sombre mistiness; the sullen mingling of darkness and of light; her masts pointing straight up could be ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... I don't want you to kill the man." He then pointed again to the flesh and to the hole. The chief uttered a few words, which had the desired effect; for the man threw the flesh into the hole, which was immediately filled up. This man was of a morose, sulky disposition, and, during all the time he remained on the island, regarded us, especially Jack, with a scowling visage. His name, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... Bertram, who always insisted on being the clergy-man, was waiting to perform the service. Ants, it must be confessed, are not good at games: they are too busy, or, as Bertram put it, too selfish. Neither are wood-lice. Just at important moments wood-lice turn sulky and roll themselves into little balls. Worms are most trust-worthy, although never eager for sensible play; but worms are slimy, and Beryl always refused to touch them. Spiders, too, have a way of getting down one's neck. Perhaps frogs are best of all. ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas

... by which he could be traced, and sauntered slowly out of the station into the streets of Rome once more. Hailing the first fiacre he saw, he told the driver to take him to Frascati. The man was either lazy or sulky. ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... boy—I'd wax the little hide off of you. But come, let us be settling. Is it a lie now, Jem; speak out—is it a lie, consarn you? for if it be, you'd best jest say 't out now, and save your bones to-morrow. Well, boys, the critter's sulky, so most like it is true—and I guess we'll be arter him. We'll be up bright and airly, and go a horseback, and if he be there, we can kill him in no time at all, and be right back to breakfast. I'll start Jem and the captain here, and Dave Seers, with the dogs, an hour ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... every Sunday, as though each temptation were the first, and with a look of displeasure which enlivened my aunt and never offended her, for if it so happened that Eulalie, when she took the money, looked a little less sulky than usual, my aunt would remark afterwards, "I cannot think what has come over Eulalie; I gave her just the trifle I always give, and she did not look at ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... deface your Idyllion with an ugly contradiction, did I come in such mood as mine is. I am older in years than you; but in humor I am older by centuries. What a hope is in that ever young heart, cheerful, healthful as the morning! And as for me, you have no conception what a crabbed, sulky piece of sorrow and dyspepsia I am grown; and growing, if I do not draw bridle. Let me gather heart a little! I have not forgotten Concord or the West; no, it lies always beautiful in the blue of the horizon, afar off and yet attainable; it is a great possession to me; should ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Harrison's regiment, on being reasoned with by Fairfax and the other officers, at length good-humouredly gave way, tore the mutinous emblem from their hats, and broke into cheers. Lilburne's, which had driven away most of its officers, remained sulky and vociferous, till Cromwell, riding up to them, ordered them also to remove that thing from their hats, and, on their refusing, had fourteen of them dragged from the ranks, three of these tried on ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... not unkindly, "I'm glad I've come across ye, for your mother's in a terrible taking. What set ye out to run off? Come, now; don't be sulky. Give us your hand, and I guess, seein' it's you, we won't put you in ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May

... of centuries, and Springhaven despises Pebbleridge. It would answer well, although the landing is so bad, and no anchorage possible in rough weather. I must try if Dan Tugwell will undertake it. None of the rest know the coast as he does, and few of them have the bravery. But Dan is a very sulky fellow, very difficult to manage. He will never betray us; he is wonderfully grateful; and after that battle with the press-gang, when he knocked down the officer and broke his arm, he will keep pretty clear of the Union-jack. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... hunting, I should unhesitatingly choose the bold cripple, who I hope will get his leg right, for he would certainly perform brilliantly in any hunt, although as a show hound he would be superseded by his more sulky and indolent brother. ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... get stubborn when they are made to follow in the rear of a horse, and it was so with Nigger. He acted like a sulky child, and made the girls laugh at his contrary behavior. He seemed to have lost all individual ambition, and made John's horse drag him at the unusually ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... of the arrival of the manager, Mr. Hand's rather mysterious but friendly temper underwent a change for the worse. He not only continued silent, which might easily be counted a virtue, but he became almost sulky, which could only be called a crime. There was no bantering with Sallie in the kitchen, scarcely a friendly smile for Agatha herself. Mr. Hand was markedly out ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... could find no trace of the lady after all. Strachan got into low spirits, and I confess that I was sometimes sulky—so we had an occasional blow up, which by no means added to the conviviality of the voyage. One evening, just at sundown, we entered the Sound of Sneeshanish—an ugly place, let me tell you, at the best, but especially to be avoided in any thing like a gale of wind. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... children were running about the house and kept interfering with their mothers' work, and the mothers scolded the monkey for not keeping them out of the way. Then the monkey got sulky and carried off the children to a distant hill and did not bring them back at evening. So the mothers got very anxious, but the villagers laughed at them for engaging a monkey, instead of a human being, to look after ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas

... when Mrs. Lee gave way to mermaids in the eternal flow of talk. She wondered, sometimes, that their voices did not fail them, though occasionally a sulky silence or a nap produced a brief interval of peace. She worked faithfully until her household tasks were accomplished, discovering that, no matter how one's heart aches, one can do the necessary ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... sulky silence, full of reservations. He looks like a condemned criminal awaiting execution. He is so pre-occupied that he does not even answer when the sarcastic Sergeant says as ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel

... came also, who was sulky, whilst the Cheap Jack was civil. He gave his horse a cut across the knees, to remind him to plant his feet carefully among the sharp boulders; and then, choosing a smooth bit by the side of the road, he and George went ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... for lacking a title, but I can give her a title," said the King; and as he looked at the sulky youth a thought came to him, and he added, "Strange that you think so much of blood when you could not distinguish your own from a beggar's if you saw them mixed together ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit

... Dumbfoundered at such unforeseen success? 'Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot' You begin—place aux dames! I'll prompt you then! 'Here do I take the good the gods allot!' Next you, Sir! What, still sulky? Sing, O Muse! 'Here does my lord in full discharge his shot!' Now for the crowning flourish! ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... of a schoolboy,—an Eton boy with a long nose and small, grey eyes, and an expression distinctly rather sulky and lowering than open or pleasing. Not a stupid face, ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... neighbor sees that you have a better house and home [a larger family and more fertile fields], greater possessions and fortune from God than he, he is sulky, envies you, and speaks no ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... it may be supposed that the zeal of the party dispatched was not very great. The fact is, they were all sulky, from the major downwards, among the military, and from Vanslyperken downwards, among the naval portion of the detachment. Nancy Corbett, satisfied with having effected her object, had crossed over the night before, and joined her companions in the cave; and ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... formed the gist of the interview, he would have been even more enraged than he was. But, for the time being, Fate was against the wily chaplain, and, in the end, he was compelled to betake himself to a solitary and sulky walk, during which his reflections concerning Graham and Baltic were the reverse of amiable. As a defeated sneak, Mr Cargrim was not a credit to ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... and she cackled. "But the robbers had the best av intintions when they came to me," and she related at length her experience with the two who broke in when her Cow was reported sold. She laughed over their enjoyment of the Lung Balm, and briefly told how the big man was sulky and the short, broad one was funny. Their black beards, the "big wan" with his wounded head, his left-handedness and his accidental exposure of the three fingers of the right hand, ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Silberfarb returned the paranoiac dress-suit to the rack, sighing patiently as he laboriously draped it on a hanger. He peered and pawed. He crowed with throaty triumph and brought back a rich ripe thing of velvet collar and cuffs. He fixed Milt with eyes that had become as sulky as the eyes of a dog ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... mentally apostrophised the missing Brian Luttrell. "One would think that she was glad of what I told her." He was thoroughly put out by this reflection, and munched his breakfast in sulky silence, listening cynically to his step-mother's idle utterances and Kitty's vivacious replies. He was conscious of some disinclination to meet Elizabeth's tranquil glance, of which he bitterly resented the ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... bit more than an explanation from Holmes," the sulky captain continued, though in ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock

... gone since, having lashed four Indian dead among the branches of the burial trees, troopers, Sioux, and rescued had returned to a post that was half in ashes. Now, guards tramped the high board walk as before, keeping strict watch of their sulky prisoners; the ramshackle ferry-boat, dragged away from the bar that had halted her, was tied up at her landing again; across the upper end of the parade, grey tents had replaced the barracks; while, farther on, teams and scrapers were clearing away smoking ruins ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... exclaimed the girl, pointing out another who was driving a fat pony in a yellow sulky. "Talk ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... was being laughed at for the rest of the way, and looked quite sulky; but the sight of the great fallen tree, and the huge rhinoceros surrounded by vultures busily working a way through the tough hide, revived him, and he marched forward to examine his bullet holes with the look of pride worn ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn

... whose large dark head and heavy shoulders look as if they sustained the whole weight of an intolerable world. His features, designed for sensuous composure, brood in a sad and sulky resignation ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair

... well conceive that such would have been an inauspicious moment for Parson Dale's theological scruples to have stopped that marriage, chilled all the sunshine it diffused over the village, seen himself surrounded again by long sulky visages,—I verily believe, though a better friend of Church and State never stood on a hustings, that, rather than court such a revulsion, the squire would have found jesuitical excuses for the marriage if Riccabocca had been discovered ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... lawyer, the young man was quite acceptable, but as a possible aspirant to his daughter's favour he would be entirely out of place. Fred Hamilton was the only other one present outside the family. The young man sat in sulky silence most of the evening, a circumstance which seemed to put his pretty hostess into ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... there was between you was jealousy—too much affection. I know it better than anyone else; old friends, like me, who go in and out of the house just like old dogs, are treated with intimacy and hear things the husband does not know. Believe me, Mariano, no one will ever love you as she did. Her sulky words were only passing clouds. I am sure you no longer remember them. What did not pass was the other, the love she bore you. I am positive; you know that she told me everything, that I was the only person she could tolerate ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... it was on terms that for more than one reason did not entirely please her. To affect a confidential intimacy with Royal Blondin was utterly distasteful, and to have poor little Nina sulky and silent far from pleasant. But most disquieting of all was the immediate result of old Madame ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... see the scene in its every detail, and I know I shall carry the picture with me to the grave; the long, low room with its blackened ceiling, the garish yellow gaslight, the smoke haze, the crowded tables, Otto, shuffling hither and hither with his mean and sulky air, Frau Hedwig, preoccupied at her desk, red-eyed, a graven image of woe, and Haase, presiding over the beer-engine, silent, defiant, calm, but watchful ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... I do not think he will offend you so again. Ah! look. He is walking off—he is sulky. Well, let him alone; he will be back for his dinner, the pig! Oh, the wet and the wind! A Cypriote does not mind them in his sheepskins, in which he will ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... two eldest of the boys, both of whom were now nearly grown up to manhood, had been far from obedient in their general conduct. Ever since we had been reduced to a low scale of diet they had been sulky and discontented, never assisting in the routine of the day, or doing what they were requested to do with that cheerfulness and alacrity that they had previously exhibited. Unaccustomed to impose the least restraint ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... has often been recommended as a certain mode of disgusting him with mutton, should he survive the discipline inflicted on him by the avenger of the blood of his race. I can recall but one instance within my experience in which this corrective was tested. It was in the case of a sulky dog of a breed between the red Irish setter and something larger, but less patrician, upon whom the thirst for blood fell at uncertain intervals, impelling him then to devastate the very sheepfolds of which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... fellow's face. This was repeated several times with the effect of finally straightening out his muddled senses sufficiently to warrant us in embarking for the return trip. All the way home Ingra was in a sulky mood, like any terrestrial drunkard after a debauch, but he kept his eyes on all Edmund's movements with an expression of cunning, which he had not sufficient self-command to conceal, and which could leave no doubt in our minds as to the nature of the quest which had led him into the car. ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss

... shoving off the boats. So I climbed to the top of the East Cliff. The air was cool and still—so still that all the Seacombe smoke hung in the valley and drifted slowly to seawards and faded there. While the sun was setting behind a bank of sulky dull clouds, some woolpacks, faintly outlined in white against the grey, rose almost imperceptibly in the western sky. Everything, the sea itself, seemed very dry. Nothing moved on the cliffs, except some small birds which ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... Americans could not know how little King George aspired to be thought the Restorer of Liberty. In reality he was extremely sulky in his silent, stubborn way over the repeal of the Stamp Act, and vexed most particularly at the part which he himself had been forced to play in it. The idea of a Patriot King, conceived by Lord Bolingbroke (one-time Jacobite exile) and instilled into the mind of the young Hanoverian ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... skirmish, and a number were killed on both sides. Then they surrendered and we went in and put a guard at the gates, and wouldn't let the niggers in. You wouldn't believe it, but they actually kicked at it. They're an unreasonable, sulky lot of beggars." ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby

... feeling, which he plainly expressed to the Almighty, that now his reputation was gone he might as well die. The Lord considerately "prepared a gourd," which grew up over Jonah's head to protect him from the heat; at which the sulky prophet was "exceedingly glad," although it would naturally be thought that the booth would afford ample protection. He, however, soon found himself sold; for the Lord prepared a worm to destroy the gourd, and ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote

... Vere De Witt Is having such a sulky fit! Because she couldn't have her way With other children at their play. A sulky Goop I really call As bad as ...
— The Goop Directory • Gelett Burgess

... tease him that everybody around the Smiling Pool took advantage of it. Grandfather Frog took it good-naturedly at first, but after a while it made him cross, and by the time his cousin, old Mr. Toad, arrived, he was sulky and just grunted when Mr. Toad told him how glad he was to find ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess

... at least to winch in three-parts of the line before the next rush, which was equally formidable, but not so long. I think I never had a salmon fight as this one did. He, at any rate, was not one of the sulky kind, and it was quite on the cards that I had one of the twenty or thirty pounders for which the angler is always longing. By and by we landed on a rock—or rather two rocks—Knut on a flat bit of crag and I on ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... then thinking of herself, and no threat against her took any hold upon her mind. She returned him a sulky glance of ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... to his own eggs in a grim and sulky frame of mind. He would repudiate the letter, if need be, tell Dick it was only something he had written as a literary experiment and thought he'd try it on the dog. But the moment he heard the boy's key in the door and then his step through the hall, he knew he could not, for ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... poison the sources of spiritual life and shrivel the soul. Generosity of heart and a genial good will towards all are absolutely essential to him who would possess fine manners. Here is a man who is cross, crabbed, moody, sullen, silent, sulky, stingy, and mean with his family and servants. He refuses his wife a little money to buy a needed dress, and accuses her of extravagance that would ruin a millionaire. Suddenly the bell rings. Some neighbors call: what a change! The bear of a moment ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... "Point high, so that the balls will not hit anybody; and when I begin to shoot do you shoot also, and as quickly as you can. Mind, you are not to hit anybody," I added; for I saw by the look on Young's face that he longed to fire into the crowd point-blank. For answer he gave me a rather sulky nod of assent; but I saw by the way that he held his pistols that my order was obeyed. "Now," I said, "Fire!"—and as rapidly as self-acting revolvers would do it, we poured twenty-four shots through the slits ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... passed, and now when I am writing this, there is a Church of God singing the praises of Jesus in that very district of Tanna. On leaving the second village, a young lad affectionately took my hand to lead me to the next village; but a sulky, down-browed savage, carrying a ponderous club, also insisted upon accompanying us. I led the way, guided by the lad. Mr. Mathieson got the man to go before him, while he himself followed, constantly watching. Coming to a place where ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton

... according to the lover's whim, interpreted into the contrary. By 'good temper,' I do not mean easy temper, a serenity which nothing disturbs, for that is a mark of laziness. Sulkiness, if you be not too blind to perceive it, is a temper to be avoided by all means. A sulky man is bad enough; what, then, must be a sulky woman, and that woman a wife; a constant inmate, a companion day and night! Only think of the delight of sitting at the same table, and sleeping in the same bed, for a week, and not exchange a word all the while! Very bad to be scolding ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett

... road came a man in a sulky, driving a heavy stallion. The animal was a bright chestnut-sorrel, with cream-colored mane and tail. The tail almost swept the ground, while the mane was so thick that it crested out of the neck and flowed down, long and wavy. He scented the mares and stopped short, head flung up ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... honour this expedition, with Rousseau, Voltaire, and Beelzebub at their head; he set spurs to Sphinx, and at the same time cut and cracked away as hard as he could, holding in the reins with all his might, striving to make the creature plunge and show some uncommon diversion. But sulky and ill-tempered was Sphinx at the time: she plunged indeed—such a devil of a plunge, that she dashed him in one jerk over her head, and he fell precipitately into the water before her. It was in the Bay of Biscay, all ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... present fleet on the river Charles consists of three row-boats. 1. A small flat-bottomed skiff of the shape of a flat-iron, kept mainly to lend to boys. 2. A fancy "dory" for two pairs of sculls, in which I sometimes go out with my young folks. 3. My own particular water-sulky, a "skeleton" or "shell" race-boat, twenty-two feet long, with huge outriggers, which boat I pull with ten-foot sculls,—alone, of course, as it holds but one, and tips him out, if he doesn't mind what he is about. In this I glide around the Back Bay, down ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... house with a very sulky face; would take no notice of books or games, and seemed ...
— Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories • Anonymous

... attending on her. As was then the custom, she wore a little red mantle as a walking dress. One day we were out in the fields, when she ran off in chase of a butterfly. At the further end of the field a bull was grazing, having been turned out to indulge his sulky humour by himself. The sight of the red cloak fluttering over the green meadow suddenly excited his rage, and with a loud roar he came rushing up towards it. I saw the little girl's danger, and quick as lightning darted towards her. The cloak was fortunately ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston

... temper which engendered the above no very flattering compliment to the society at the Castle, Miss Dundas descended to the dining-room with sulky looks and a chilling air. She ate what the baronet laid on her plate with an indolent appetite, cut her meat carelessly, and dragged the vegetables over the table-cloth. Miss Dorothy colored at this indifference to the usual neatness of her damask ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... was exceedingly small; so small, and of such a grotesque shape, that the sailors christened it the Pill Box; and by this appellation it always went. In fact, it was a sort of "sulky," meant for a solitary paddler, but, on an emergency, capable of floating two or three. The outrigger was a mere switch, alternately rising in air, and then ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... course. Now, when he comes home he'll expect to find you cross, and perhaps sulky with him. Suppose, instead, he finds you smiling and with a nice little apple turnover that you have made for him; what do you suppose he will think? Why, that you are too good a girl to be treated so badly; and, perhaps, too, if he sees you smiling and loving, he will realize how much better ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 9, March 1, 1914 • Various

... ran into Pier Street, Biddy feeling more and more ashamed of herself. How she wished she had been less hasty, and not spoken so rudely and crossly to her mother. It did seem true, as Alie said, that she spoilt everything. But she did not appear as sorry as she felt; indeed, her face had a rather sulky look when at last she came up to the others, who were waiting for her at the door ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth

... a grave time that first winter. The rod of power was new to him, and he felt it his "duty" to use it more frequently than might have been thought necessary by those upon whose sense the privilege had palled. Tears and sulky faces, and impotent fists doubled fiercely when his back was turned, were the rewards of his conscientiousness; and the boys—and girls too—were glad when working time came round again, and the master went home to help ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... no sort of freshness, and even the pines that spread for wide miles along near the summit counted for nothing in the distance and the glare, but seemed mere patches of dull dry discoloration. No talk was exchanged between the two travellers, for the cow-puncher had nothing to say and Balaam was sulky, so they moved along in silent endurance of each other's company and ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... rejoices in heaven. Illusive bliss! The newcomer proves to be no favorite with Madam Cook, and the domestic fates evolve the catastrophe, as follows. First, low murmur of distant thunder in the kitchen; then a day or two of sulky silence, in which the atmosphere seems heavy with an approaching storm. At last comes the climax. The parlor door flies open during breakfast. Enter seamstress in tears, followed by Mrs. Cook, with a face swollen and red with wrath, who tersely introduces the subject-matter ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... told Miss Sharpe, when she didn't think I could hear, that Ada wasn't really good enough to be the maid, but that they hoped she would sing for them between the acts. Miss Anderson said if they didn't let her have some part she'd be so sulky she wouldn't sing." ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson

... legs of off hind horse (think this is what he's called), and it took an hour, and the help of five wayfarers (down near Putney), to disentangle them. Each of the five demanded (and got—to save a row), half-a-crown for the job. BOB rather sulky. We had to put up for the night at a country inn, somewhere beyond Raynes Park. Gentlemen of party slept on kitchen floor, among suburban black-beetles. Pic-nicky, but would have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various

... says, "I wrote to Pariss to hym to hasten hym homewards," and in April 1576, he landed at Dover in an exceedingly sulky mood. He refused to see his wife, and told Burghley he might take his daughter into his own house again, for he was resolved "to be rid of the cumber."[139] He accused his father-in-law of holding back money due to him, ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard

... to his companion. "Just see, Voules, if that young fellow is more amenable to reason than that sulky old boatman." ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... swagger to say that I wish to GOD I'd the chance of giving my life to get him back for you. But you must come home now. I've bitten my lip through in holding my tongue, but I won't see you kneel another minute at the feet of that sulky old ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... with Professor Cutter, he felt that the yoke had suddenly been taken from his neck, and that he was henceforth free to follow his own career and his own interests, without further thought for her who had cast him off. He was not a boy, to grow sulky at an unkind word, or to resent a fancied insult. He was a grown man, more than thirty years of age, and he fully realized his position, without exaggeration and without any superfluous exhibition of feeling. All at once he felt like a ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... pedestrians jostled each other—men with hands in their pockets and arms tight to their sides, women with piqued noses and hurrying steps; while sulky lamps offered half-hearted resistance to the conquering fog that settled over palaces, parks, and motley streets until it hugged the very Thames itself in ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... He had thought a great deal about that deer, and had meant to get on his back to ride him as a horse, and go to see all the wonderful places the lion talked to him about when he was in a good temper. The more he thought of it the more sulky he grew, and in the morning, when the lion said that it was time for them to start to hunt, the cat told him that he might kill the bear and snake by himself, as he had a headache, and would rather stay ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... own judgment. I had no fear of failing to do the job well, or of displeasing my old master or his employer. If I had any doubts, they were about the men who were to work under my lead, whom I did not rate at all equally; and, if I could have had my pick, I should have thrown out some of the more sulky and lazy of them, and should have chosen from the other hands. But youngsters must not be choosers when they are on their ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... yet there was something in his voice, a sort of ring of hope or conviction, that caused Kitty to lift her pretty sulky little face and look at him with a new interest. And Hayden was not at all bad to look at. He was well set-up, with a brown, square face, brown hair, gray eyes full of expression and good humor and an unusually ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... with great pains and patience, disentangled the casting line, first from her hair, which Ricardo was anxious to cut (the great stupid oaf,—her pretty hair!) then from the landing-net; but Dick had grown sulky. ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang

... into lodgings to be waited upon by the servant-of-all-work. The period of my little illusions is over. You cured me of my first love, who certainly was a fool, and would have had a fool for her husband, and a very sulky, discontented husband, too, if she had taken me. We young fellows live fast, sir; and I feel as old at five-and-twenty as many of the old fo—, the old bachelors—whom I see in the bay-window at Bays's. Don't look offended, I only mean that I am blase about love matters, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... snarled as it shook its whiskers, and turned a sulky brown back on them. The most hopeful felt that further ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... the others in angry pursuit. Another roll flung in would, of course, divert their attention, and the squabble would begin all over again. The fun was largely in watching the individual peculiarities of the fishes. One sulky old thing disdained to fight, but if given a roll all to himself he would swim away with it, and sticking his head in a small corner of the stone parapet, would eat it greedily, while he kept off the other fishes by madly lashing his tail. Another ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells

... cheered up at once. He received a royal welcome from the little girls—in marked contrast to Miss Mamie's sulky reception of me as the destroyer of her nice sash. Redwood himself was delighted to see him, and the family tea was quite a ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... seventy-seven. A young part,—but the old man was as joyous as a boy and filled it with a boisterous, mischievous humour at once delightful and indescribable. You saw him to the best advantage, though, in Mr. Sulky, Humphrey Dobbin, and kindred parts, wherein the fineness of his temperament was veiled under a crabbed exterior and some scope was allowed for his superb skill in painting character. So the discourse will run; and, when it touches upon John Gilbert, what else ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... prosperous than she had anticipated, with four different races mingling in the market, but the darkness was terrible, and the wickedness shameless, even the children being foul-mouthed and abandoned. The younger and more progressive men gave her a warm welcome, but the older chiefs were sulky—"Poor old heathen souls," she remarked, "they have good reason to be, with all they have to hope from tumbling down about their ears." The would-be Christians had begun to erect a small church, with two rooms for her at the ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... recalled my poor Edward to life. He sent us home in his own carriage. Yours will be returned to you to-morrow. You will find your horses in bad condition, from the results of this accident; they seem thoroughly stupefied, as if sulky and vexed at having been conquered by man. The count, however, has commissioned me to assure you that two or three days' rest, with plenty of barley for their sole food during that time, will bring them back to as fine, that is as terrifying, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... insisted upon the pleasure of his society, until I had examined each and every coin. He went away chuckling, and told another waiter all about it. They both of them bowed to me as I went out, and wished me a pleasant journey. I left them still chuckling. A British waiter would have been sulky all the afternoon. ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome

... weeks later, Paul travelled homewards, his disappointment was quite forgotten, and he was in the best of spirits, for it is beyond the power of any ordinary boy to feel morose and sulky the day his school breaks up and he goes home for his summer holiday; and when the family joined him at Slewbury station,—all except his father, who was to follow later,—and they journeyed on together, he was the life of ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... on retiring from a large house of business, took a neat little country box at Laytonstone, and going with his wife to see it, she was very sulky and displeased; which "Gilpin" observing, said, "my dear Judy, don't you like the place?" "Like it indeed! no, why there isn't room to swing a cat in it." "Well, but my dear Judy, you know we never have any occasion to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various

... Bouncer, very sulky, was huddled up in a corner, barricaded with a chair. Flopsy had taken away his pipe and hidden the tobacco. She had been having a complete turn out and spring- cleaning, to relieve her feelings. She had just finished. Old Mr. Bouncer, behind his chair, ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter

... been up here telling tales while I was asleep," Rachel expostulated, hotly and her demeanour was at once pouting, sulky, and righteously offended. ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... a moment she looked as if she were going to refuse; then she said, in an almost sulky tone: "Very well." They turned in that direction and walked slowly. At last they reached the spot where Mrs. Aylmer had discovered Kitty and ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade

... black case, but we were none the wiser for that; for the old doctor was of the sort who intrench themselves in a professional reserve. You might draw up beside the road to question him, but you could as well deter the course of nature. He would give the roan a flick, and his sulky would flash by. ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... looked more sulky than ever. As soon as the air was finished, another of the party responded with his flute, from the other boat—while Mr Quince played what he called base, by snapping his fingers. The sounds of the instruments floated along the flowing and smooth water, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... spliced. All the clodhoppers and grass-combers I had met before, who were mostly her relations, were asked to the wedding, and among the rest her clownish admirer, who, I understood, was her cousin. He was rather sulky at first, but seeing everyone around him in good humour, he came up to me and offered his hand, which I took and shook heartily. The farmhouse not being more than three miles from Chatham, we hired two coaches from that place, and with the addition of two chay-carts belonging to the farmers, we made ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... able to make out by playing the inquisitive traveller. I dare say the statements are exaggerated, but I do not think they are wholly devoid of truth. The Dutch round Capetown (I don't know anything of 'up country') are sulky and dispirited; they regret the slave days, and can't bear to pay wages; they have sold all their fine houses in town to merchants, &c., and let their handsome country places go to pieces, and their land lie fallow, rather than hire the men they used to own. They hate the Malays, ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... the voyage was made up. Greenleaf was to have a third, the Dutchman a third, and Williams and M'Lellan a third, to be divided between Mr. C—Colonel Jones, I should say—Captain Sawyer, and myself. But, the moment Greenleaf was out of the way, the Dutchman grew sulky, and insisted on having his part—making two-thirds; and finally swore he would have it, or die. This we thought rather unreasonable; and, as I had the chart with me, and all the marks, while the Dutchman had ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... they came suddenly in sight of the other gipsies—the two women and the big sulky-looking boy—gathered round a tree, the donkey's panniers and the various bundles the party had been carrying lying on the ground beside them. If the panniers had been unpacked and their contents spread out, as Mick had told the children, they had certainly been quickly packed up again. But ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth

... to which I gave little answer, but complained of the hurt in my leg. To this I could obtain no reply, except "Curse you, my lad! if that be all, we will give you some ointment for that; we will anoint it with a little cold iron." They were indeed excessively sulky with me, for having broken their night's rest, and given them all this trouble. In the morning they were as good as their word, fixing a pair of fetters upon both my legs, regardless of the ankle which was now swelled to a considerable size, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... sulky because he had played his usual game badly this evening, and chance failing him had favoured the girls. He had asked to be excused from the party, to their deep but unexpressed indignation, and had almost won his father's consent to a request to go down town a while, ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... and a fourth, while in the intervals Fairchild's eyes sought out the sulky, sullen form of Maurice Rodaine, flattened against the wall, eyes evil, mouth a straight line, and the blackness of hate discoloring his face. It was as so much wine to Fairchild; he felt himself really young for the first time in his life. And as the music started again, ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... also that these goods were intended to be smuggled, so I remember Hanks saying; but how that was I did not trouble myself, nor do I to this day know. The smugglers, as well as they might, were certainly sulky; and Hanks, as a gentle hint for them to behave themselves, stationed a man with a double-barrelled pistol in his hand close to them, while they stood huddled together on the little forecastle. I took the helm, while the sails ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... starling with impatient screech has flown The chimney, and is watching from the tree. They thought us gone for ever: mouse alone Stops in the middle of the floor to see. Now all you idle things, resume your toil. Hearth, put your flames on. Sulky kettle, boil. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various

... of Mr. McLean moved, and a sulky sound came forth that I recognized to be meant for the word "War." Then he rolled over so that his face was away from me, and put an arm over ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister

... on with indifferent success—only securing a few small roach and gudgeon; and Mr Inglis, too, seemed as though he would have no further good fortune, for the chub appeared to have turned sulky because their big companion was taken away, and would not even smell the gudgeon. At last, however, Mr Inglis made a cast, and the little bait-fish fell lightly just beneath a bush close under the bank; when there was a rush through the water, and a swirling that took ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

... "Sulky? I, sulky? You never made a greater mistake. You're not a good judge of character, Sylvia. Don't go in for it. Leave it alone. You'll never make anything of it, you haven't the gift. As it happens, I have a very good temper, except that now and then I'm 'rather violent when ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... owl-like gravity announces that if the import tax on putty be increased somewhat, or fiddle-strings be placed on the free list, the American mechanic will have money to throw at the birds— that mortgages and mendicancy will pass like a hideous nightmare, and the farmer gayly bestride his sulky plow attired like unto Solomon in ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... did," he replied, laughing. "He seemed as sulky as a bear, and growled out that there had been no race, for Hartledon had ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... forcing conversation on her unwilling room mate, lest she should give offense; and it was the policy of this woman to "avoid offenses," nor yet did she keep total silence, lest she should seem to be sulky; for it was also her policy always to seem amiable and happy. So, though Cora never voluntarily addressed one word to her, yet Rose occasionally spoke sweetly some commonplace about the weather, their room, the bill of fare at dinner, and so on; to all of which observations she ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... the sentinel without had made Mollie sulky, and she turned her back upon the girl ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... having nothing but a fishing-spear in their hands. To entice them towards us I had made Kaiber strip himself and stand up in the boat; and now that they were near enough to us I told him to call out to them and say that we were friends. He hereupon shouted out, "Come in, come in; Mr. Grey sulky yu-a-da;" by which he intended to say, "Come here, come here; Mr. Grey is not angry with you." The two sorcerers, utterly confused by this mode of address, committed more overt acts of witchcraft towards us than they had even hitherto done; and Kaiber, ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... and the wit was out, as savage and as quarrelsome as a bear. At such times there was no one but Ned Layton dared go near him. We once had a pitched battle, in which I was conqueror; and ever arter he yielded a sort of sulky obedience to all I said to him. Arter being on the spree for a week or two, he would take fits of remorse, and return home to his wife; would fall down at her knees, and ask her forgiveness, and cry like a child. At other times he would hide himself up in the woods, and steal home at night, ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... up his voice and wailed. Perhaps his delicate nose had already detected the faint, unhallowed odor of the chemicals within. He stubbornly refused to ride back in the cart with the new acquisition, and was accused of being sulky and childish. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... which was shown at the port by candle-light, and was a very odd kind of animal, no doubt. The bear had been taught a hundred tricks, all to be performed at the keeper's word of command. It was late in the evening when O'Leary saw him, and the bear seemed sulky; the keeper, however, with a short spike fixed at the end of a pole, made him move about briskly. He marked on sand what o'clock it was, with his paw; and distinguished the men and women in a very comical way: in fact, our priest was quite diverted. The beast at length grew tired—the keeper hit ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... men came in. Mr. Ridding didn't know them. No class, he thought, looking them over; and was seized with a feeling of sulky vexation suitable to twenty when he saw with what enthusiasm the Twinklers flew to meet them. They behaved, thought Mr. Ridding crossly, as if they were ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... with its "Pheasantries," its "Favoritas," &c. &c. The place had originally been monastic (Busching, Erdbeschreibung, vi. 1519).] Founding, in fact, a second Capital for Wurtemberg, with what distress, sulky misery and disarrangement, to Stuttgard and the old Capital, readers can fancy. There it stands, that Ludwigsburg, the second Capital of Wurtemberg, some ten or twenty miles from Stuttgard the first: a lasting memorial of Circe Gravenitz and her Ludwig. Has not ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... of his existence had been recognized amid the cannon and trumpets of a camp in Picardy, and his mother had sung a gay Bearnese song as he was coming into the world at Pau. Thus, said his grandfather, Henry of Navarre, thou shalt not bear to us a morose and sulky child. The good king, without a kingdom, taking the child, as soon as born, in the lappel of his dressing-gown, had brushed his infant lips with a clove of garlic, and moistened them with a drop of generous Gascon wine. Thus, said the grandfather ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... before the dance, Hetty buying her dancing-shoes at the back of the store, where the shoe-cases framed in a snug little alcove for the exhibition of a "fit." The boy, in his belled spurs and "shaps" of goat-hide, was lounging disconsolate and sulky against one of the front counters; she wore a striped ulster, an enchanted garment his arm had pressed, and a pink crocheted tam-o'-shanter cocked ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote



Words linked to "Sulky" :   slow, sulk, huffish, gloomful, glooming, dark, sluggish, horse-drawn vehicle, ill-natured, sulkiness



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