Wiktionary

dour

See also: dōur, and ďour

English

edit
WOTD – 8 November 2010

Etymology

edit

Borrowed 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

edit

Adjective

edit

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

edit

Translations

edit

Anagrams

edit

Breton

edit

Etymology

edit

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

Pronunciation

edit

Noun

edit

dour m (plural dourioù or doureier)

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

Derived terms

edit

Mutation

edit
Mutation of dour
unmutated soft aspirate hard
singular dour zour unchanged tour
plural doureier zoureier unchanged toureier

Champenois

edit

Pronunciation

edit

IPA(key): /dur/

Noun

edit

dour (m)

  1. Alternative form of jou

Scots

edit

Etymology

edit

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

Adjective

edit

dour

  1. stern, severe, relentless, dour

Descendants

edit
  • → English: dour

References

edit
Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=dour&oldid=82534120"