dour

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See also: dōur and ďour

English

WOTD – 8 November 2010

Etymology

From Scots dour, possibly from Latin dūrus (“hard, stern”), via Middle Irish dúr. Compare French dur, Catalan dur, Italian duro, Portuguese duro, Romanian dur, Spanish duro. Doublet of dure.

Pronunciation

Adjective

dour (comparative dourer or more dour, superlative dourest or most dour)

  1. Stern, harsh and forbidding.
    Synonyms: forbidding, harsh, severe, stern
    • 1961 October, “Editorial: The importance of the "Roadrailer"”, in Trains Illustrated, page 577:
      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.
    • 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:
      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.
    • 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:
      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.
  2. Unyielding and obstinate.
    Synonym: stubborn
  3. Expressing gloom or melancholy.
    Synonyms: dejected, gloomy, melancholic, sullen

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

Breton

Etymology

From Proto-Brythonic *duβr, from Proto-Celtic *dubros, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰubʰrós (“deep”).

Pronunciation

Noun

dour m (plural dourioù or doureier)

  1. water
  2. (by extension) rain, tears, sweat, saliva

Mutation

  Mutation of dour  
Breton consonant mutation
unmutated soft aspirate hard
singular dour zour unchanged tour
plural doureier zoureier unchanged toureier

Scots

Etymology

From Middle Irish dúr, from Latin dūrus (“hard”).

Adjective

dour

  1. stern, severe, relentless, dour

Descendants

  • → English: dour

References

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia