Word of the Day Archive
Friday January 2, 2004
surly \SUR-lee\ , adjective:
1. Ill-humored; churlish in manner or mood; sullen and gruff.
2. Menacing or threatening in appearance, as of weather conditions; ominous.
Voters may be turned off by candidates who play dirty, but nothing gets a campaign reporter going like the smell of blood on the trail. Part of it has to do with boredom: journalists can only listen for so long to a candidate blather on about "a world of possibilities guided by goodness" before they get surly.
-- Michelle Cottle, "Nice Try", New Republic, February 14, 2000
Maggie drank a little too much and got surly and made snide comments during the final toast.
-- John L'Heureux, Having Everything
Surly is from Middle English sirly, "lordly," from sir, "lord," which eventually came to mean "arrogant or haughty," whence the more negative modern sense.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for surly
