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How To Use Sullen In A Sentence

  • But it is hard to imagine him miscalculating that it could be done in the teeth of active opposition from the other political parties, the electorate, and a somewhat sullen defence force.
  • She waited to tell him of her decision until the main doors of the school opened, as if to greet them, and the girls streamed through in varying degrees of sullenness and exultation and prettiness and slouching disarray.
  • But if it shall be otherwise -- if they stubbornly, sullenly persist in cherishing and manifesting the spirit of treason, making their motto to read, Bound, but not broken, then let the severities of immutable justice be meted out to them: let them die the death. A Discourse on the Death of Abraham Lincoln
  • Sullenly, Andrea settled down into her seat and grumbled something incoherent.
  • The trinkets they were wearing around their necks and wrists gave off a glimmer in the dim light - the sky had turned into a mass of sullen grey threatening a persistent downpour.
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  • Obviously the players are in a very sullen mood. The Sun
  • Practice was a sullen affair, conducted with an almost funereal lack of enthusiasm. Times, Sunday Times
  • I sat there sullenly staring at the roast mutton and potatoes.
  • The animal had the character of being, contrary to what his species usually are, exceedingly savage; and he suffered himself to be taken up by me and carried from his foes with a kind of sullenness; but when, being out of the reach of danger, he was put down, he gazed on his deliverer, and then crouched at his feet. The Dog
  • Sullenly Harry stood up to allow some one to push past into the aisle.
  • The pale woman, bosom exposed, is entwined with a dark man wearing a sullen expression and a skull cap.
  • He is too much of a cold fish to capture our hearts and often seems more sullen than smouldering.
  • Between his pale, pasty flesh, sunken sullen eyes, and limited acting ability, he gives new meaning to the word doughy.
  • As played by Mercedes Cechetto, Sabine has an undeniable brashness, but her adventures feel scripted rather than natural and her sullen pout gets old very fast.
  • By contrast, the ranks of subjects whom Andy represented, like himself, occluded and determinedly not smiling, is equally revealing, as if to conjure not so much by passive aggression as by vaguely sexualized sullenness, even vacancy, the dominant mood of international fame in the 1970s and early to mid-1980s. Archive 2009-01-01
  • Their applause turned to murmuring; their smiles turned into sullen looks. Christianity Today
  • Everywhere a sullen look, -- everywhere that ineffable aspect of crestfallenness! What Will He Do with It? — Complete
  • The sullen-faced Xavier glowered in surly silence, but the malignant, beady eyes of Du Mont regarded the officer keenly. The Gun-Brand
  • Practice was a sullen affair, conducted with an almost funereal lack of enthusiasm. Times, Sunday Times
  • The whole equipment was that of a rude warrior, negligent of his exterior even to misanthropical sullenness; and the short, harsh, haughty tone, which he used towards his attendants, belonged to the same unpolished character. The Abbot
  • His crew sullenly tailed on to the halyards, and the strange, outlandish sail, lateen in rig and dyed a warm brown, rose in the air. YELLOW HANDKERCHIEF
  • Now, she was sullen, and had a drugged look about her.
  • He listened sullenly, with averted gaze.
  • By now, I'd dealt with lots rock stars ... the sullen, the egomaniacs, the coked, the drunk, the "shhh I'm not here" types. C.P. Roth: My Visit With John Lennon at the Dakota, 1978
  • Her fingers went back to the frilling, and she turned her head sullenly away from me. The Moonstone
  • Sullen teenagers are in charge of loading people onto high velocity rides at amusement parks...perhaps the Fates are the same. I get cake, I get needles, I get to go to ER
  • Too many can just look sullen. Times, Sunday Times
  • In listening to these works with their clumsy blocks of tone, their eternal sunless complaining, their lack of humor where they would be humorous, their lack of passion where they would be profound, their sardonic and monotonous bourdon, one is perforce reminded of the photograph of Reger which his publishers place on the cover of their catalogue of his works, the photograph that shows something that is like a swollen, myopic beetle with thick lips and sullen expression crouching on an organ-bench. Musical Portraits Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers
  • Anthony Hopkins goes from sullen silence to wordy sermonising as an unhinged anthropologist in this heavy-handed drama.
  • Tom never disobeyed his father, for Mr. Tulliver was a peremptory man, and, as he said, would never let anybody get hold of his whip hand; but he went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of plumcake, and not intending to reprieve Maggie's punishment, which was no more than she deserved. Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7
  • Giving readings was seen as an embarrassment, and generations of German poets were proud to fumble around in sullen cantankerousness.
  • The shy emerald mantles the valleys and fledges the heights; the pussy-willows tremble by lake and stream; the wild crocus brims the hollows with a haze of violet; trailing his last ragged pennants of snow on the hills, winter makes his sullen retreat. The Trail of '98 A Northland Romance
  • So here's my baseball personality test : Are you a chatty first baseman or a sullen shortstop?
  • She played a sullen nutcase prone to hysterics and evil giggles.
  • Night had fallen sullenly over the storm ravaged waters of the Gulf of Mexico, with heavy drops of rain spitting down from the wet, grey, overcast sky.
  • The most nefarious creature around was a sullen old billy with evil yellow eyes. THE GOLDEN FOOL: BOOK TWO OF THE TAWNY MAN
  • On the other hand, they're liable to curtain-twitching, sullen frostiness in the cafe, and complete closedown by 7.30pm. Times, Sunday Times
  • The sky is overcast and tough mining towns along the have the sullen air of relations off the wedding list. Times, Sunday Times
  • Now, because it is needlesse to proceede any further, then what hath beene already spoken: let mee onely tell you (over and beside) and commit it to memorie, that the nature of meetings and speeches are such, as they ought to nippe or touch the hearer, like unto the Sheepes nibling on the tender grasse, and not as the sullen Dogge byteth. The Decameron
  • He had handled his Indian scouts and dealt with the "bronco" Indians, the renegades from the tribes, in circumstances of extreme peril; for he had seen the sullen, moody Apaches when they suddenly went crazy with wolfish blood-lust, and in their madness wished to kill whomever was nearest. The Rough Riders
  • Besides, captiousness, sullenness, and pouting are most exceedingly illiberal and vulgar. Letters to his son on The Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman
  • When a man is in the unsatisfied stages of love he must expect occasional attacks of greensickness, sullen passions intensified by unreasoning fear. Black Oxen
  • The sun, his friend for the moment, seemed sullen today, not wishing to warm the straw and heat his limbs in any magnanimous act of good neighbourliness.
  • He turned away in sullen, resentful silence.
  • In every government office there is a sullen secretary, a pot plant and a framed portrait of the leader.
  • They seem sullen, battered, and effectively leaderless, although they are as determined as ever to hang on to the dream of dignity and eventual independence.
  • The social spirit peculiar to the French nation bad already introduced into the inns of that country the gay and cheerful character of welcome, upon which Erasmus, at a later period, dwells with strong emphasis, as a contrast to the saturnine and sullen reception which strangers were apt to meet with at a German caravansera. Anne of Geierstein
  • Aber Cuawg, singing 'clamorously' to the sick man: 'there are that hear them that will not hear them again!' the sound of the large wave grating sullenly on the pebbles, -- Figures of Several Centuries
  • Taxpayers resent them, and those on welfare become sullen and defensive. Times, Sunday Times
  • The whole boat jerked sternwards abruptly with the recoil, as though when underway she had struck a rock, and the smoke came back round them in a sullen pall. Hornblower And The Hotspur
  • He turned to gaze with cool appraisal at his secretary, sitting sullenly all this time.
  • His boasting and anger still had that sullen petulant edge.
  • Old Jack had declined to take his darts and sat sullenly in his wheelchair.
  • They all look so sullen now, don't you think? Times, Sunday Times
  • In such sullen darkness, even a white person might half-hear duppies moaning in the unseen reeds. Asimov's Science Fiction
  • She was trying for a sultry pout, and achieving an expression of sullen vexation instead.
  • In Beijing sullen survivors of the massacre symbolically broke small bottles (xiaoping) homonymic with the dictator, and residents of the capital spoke ominously of sorcerers 'creating tiny effigies of 'old Deng' to be hexed and otherwise incised. That Old Chinese Black Magic
  • The engine starts with grumpy whine and wet chuff, and then falls into a sullen idle. Nissan GT-R: A 'Halo Car' With Devil's Horns
  • We suspect felicity is not likely to accompany a sense of entitlement, which arises from a sullen sense that not only are things not improving but that that is because we have no control - the world does not appreciate our true worth.
  • Streets that look sullen and desultory in winter suddenly sparkle like Trinidad at carnival time. Times, Sunday Times
  • She turned her back to him and stared sullenly out of the window.
  • Going back to her tiny quarters, she fell quickly asleep as the ship ploughed its way through the waters of the Atlantic under sullen skies.
  • I follow sullenly, muttering something barely coherent, concerning lies and unfairness.
  • The Indian savages," said Margrave, sullenly, "have not a health as perfect as mine, and in what you call vitality -- the blissful consciousness of life -- they are as sticks and stones compared to me. A Strange Story — Volume 02
  • Bob looked pale and sullen.
  • Indeed, everyone can cite cases of knavish behaviour – the bloody-minded GP receptionist, a sullen council jobsworth or disobliging clock-watchers shutting down switchboards at 4. 55pm, regardless. Loyal, public service merits more than this cold trashing
  • And the sullen camel at the back. Times, Sunday Times
  • The Grade As in fact became very civil and as the war drew to a close the Grade Bs began to abandon their sullen neutrality. ULTIMATE PRIZES
  • For its time, the sound is fairly astringent - like Mahler in a sullen mood.
  • The following year, Woo's A Better Tomorrow ... introduced Chow Yun-fat as the sullen, brutal antihero and Cheung as his sensitive counterpart.
  • III. iv.51 (459,7) salt and sullen rheum] -- _salt and_ sorry rheum] The old quarto has, Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies
  • To stimulate the spirit of the poor in sullen, lonely angst is hyperplasia of mammary gland flocculus "catalyst".
  • It's the one where he played a dumb sullen inarticulate Brooklyn paint-store clerk.
  • Obviously the players are in a very sullen mood. The Sun
  • The mastiff is a large, grave, sullen-looking dog, with a wide chest, noble head, long switch tail, bright eyes, and a loud, deep voice. Chatterbox Stories of Natural History
  • Some adults gave thumbs-up signs, others watched sullenly as the 60 vehicles, bristling with weapons, crawled past.
  • Bankura superintendent of police Anil Kumar said that the family members had relapsed into sullen silence, refusing to speak to anyone.
  • It consisted chiefly of a dialogue between the two lovers; and the boy, with a wonderful ease and grace and skill, mimicked the shy coquetries of the girl, her fits of petulance and dictation, and the pathetic remonstrances of her companion, his humble entreaties and his final sullenness, which is only conquered by her sudden and ample consent. Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873
  • The Maoris within the _kainga_ met them with sullen looks, for their soreness of feeling over the Government surveys now going on in their district had made them unfriendly to white faces. Adventures in Many Lands
  • He was a silent, rather sullen man, and you felt that his affability was a duty that he imposed upon himself Christianly; he was by nature reserved and even morose. The Trembling of a Leaf Little Stories of the South Sea Islands
  • Taxpayers resent them, and those on welfare become sullen and defensive. Times, Sunday Times
  • To wait in heavy harness On fluttered folk and wild Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child.
  • He had a face like worn-out leather: gnarled by high cheekbones and a sullen brow. NIGHT SISTERS
  • Marie, as we have seen, was only seventeen, unformed and wild, full of youthful passion and social despair, on the verge of what we call prostitution; reckless, hopeless, with a deep touch of sullenness and hatred. An Anarchist Woman
  • Martha's exclamation of surprise and delight at seeing the leveret was the first sound that Stephen heard in the morning; but he preserved a sullen silence as to his absence the previous night, and Martha was too shrewd to press him with questions. Fern's Hollow
  • Like the visage on the ancient statues of Hercules, the physiognomy of the hulky Bernese was large and massive, having an air of indifferent and almost sullen composure, which did not change but in moments of the fiercest agitation. Anne of Geierstein
  • The sullen Bourne was staring out of the windows at the tumbled lunar landscape. Anti-Ice
  • ‘Goodbye,’ she drawled, sullen and slow, like some big, bored, bothered grizzly bear.
  • She's childish, sullen, moody and volatile, prone to outbursts of jealousy, weeping, rage and laughter.
  • Then did I say a few things to all and sundry -- stinging, biting things, ungainsayable and forcible things -- and took possession of all the fish that were left, so the Indians slunk off in sullen silence. The Arctic Prairies : a Canoe-Journey of 2,000 Miles in Search of the Caribou; Being the Account of a Voyage to the Region North of Aylemer Lake
  • Where Emily was bright-eyed, Gretchen was sullen.
  • His daughters stared back at him with an expression of sullen resentment.
  • Their applause turned to murmuring; their smiles turned into sullen looks. Christianity Today
  • Honestly, this movie doesn't even really have jokes: it sets up comic situations every now and then, pads them out endlessly looking for something funny, then, not finding a joke lurking anywhere, the film sullenly moves on.
  • You only got me that last," Tudor grunted sullenly, "lying in ambush like -- Chapter 27
  • The thick blanket of depression stole around her, enticing her into the depths of a silent quagmire with it's sullen truths.
  • She threw him a sullen look and he shrugged and laughed and under her watchful eye began to dress. THE WOLF AND THE DOVE
  • It was an unforgettable scene -- the mate in the high place, the men, sullen and irresponsive, grouped beneath. CHAPTER XL
  • But the sullenness, withdrawal and irritability are hard on those around them.
  • This hope was dashed when she walked into the dining room to find him still sullen and sulky.
  • Most of the soldiers were a dull lot, either sullen and silent, not wishing to be where they were, or braggarts, constantly telling all who would listen of their strength and bravery.
  • These were a mother and a _backfisch_, and they looked shyly and sullenly at Mrs. Hilary and the other English-woman in the compartment. Dangerous Ages
  • Playing the malevolent, abrasive junkie single mother of a missing kidnap victim, a slatternly, slack-jawed racist, Ryan adopted a drunkard's waxen pallor, honked up the full braying working-class Boston accent and, in those seven minutes, ran a gamut of emotions, from sullen resentment to inappropriate levity and a final descent into abject sobbing – a magnificent shipwreck of a performance. Amy Ryan: the Isabelle Huppert of Hollywood
  • Objection 1: It would seem that the species of anger are unsuitably assigned by the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 5) where he says that some angry persons are "choleric," some "sullen," and some "ill-tempered" or "stern. Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province
  • For the sullen steadiness, dispassionateness, detachment with which it was said made it more real than it had been at the water's edge. The Visioning
  • The tutor breakfasts on coffee made of beans, edulcorated with milk watered to the verge of transparency; his mutton is tough and elastic, up to the moment when it becomes tired out and tasteless; his coal is a sullen, sulphurous anthracite, which rusts into ashes, rather than burns, in the shallow grate; his flimsy broadcloth is too thin for winter and too thick for summer. Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works
  • But while the upper edges of the thickening cloud were bright as polished brass, underneath they were a sullen purple.
  • She threw him a sullen look and he shrugged and laughed and under her watchful eye began to dress. THE WOLF AND THE DOVE
  • When we got to the terminal there were sullen holiday crowds waiting for their delayed luggage; ours took a week to arrive. Times, Sunday Times
  • He thought that some of them resented his sullenness, his silence. The Empty Family
  • Sullen youths smoking clove cigarettes, wizened old ladies hunched over baskets of shallots, krupuk sellers, batik-clad matrons shopping for fish, the occasional leathery homeless man brandishing a tin begging cup. Laura Silverman: Nose-to-Tail Eating in Indonesia
  • If I do that, it will make him sullen and resentful and unmotivated to control his desire to hit when he is angry.
  • Any living thing which brought life and movement to stir the sullen stillness of it all would be silenced.
  • There's a sullen, and increasingly angry mood on the issue.
  • Streets that look sullen and desultory in winter suddenly sparkle like Trinidad at carnival time. Times, Sunday Times
  • He's harder to read, sullen when you first meet him, but very relaxed in Georgia's company and given to deadpan asides that he drops into her indiscreet chatter.
  • France is peopled with patriots in red caps and tricoloured cockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, sullen and suspicious, who instinctively curse all aristocrats.
  • _Shame_ -- to confess his folly; and yet a sullen desire, to be reconciled and better advised for the future! what tragedy ever showed us such a tumult of passions rising at once in one bosom! or what buskined hero standing under the load of them, could have more effectually moved his spectators, by the most pathetic speech, than poor miserable Nokes did, by this silent eloquence, and piteous plight of his features? The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810
  • Sometimes he was boisterously loud in his merriment, sometimes sullen and silent; and when Eustace, unwearied, reiterated his arguments, he replied to him, not only with complete want of the deference he was usually so scrupulous in paying to his dignity, but with rude and scurril taunts and jests on his youth, his clerkly education, and his inexperience. The Lances of Lynwood
  • But tonight, when he stumbles off to the sullen stares of passengers eager to arrive at their own lonely climes, he'll grab his bag from the belly of the bus, and hear his heeltaps on the scarred, grooved tile.
  • In the case of the redoutable Captain Sullenberger of Hudson River fame, he actually took the controls away from his copilot after the bird strike rather than abandoning the controls and, in his description of the incident, let the passengers do the praying since he was too busy with the technical demands of ditching an airliner in a river after losing all power at low altitude and low speed. Pilot Who Prayed Before Crash Sentenced in Italy - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com
  • Even his haughty, sullen expression enthralled her. Warlock
  • And beyond the vale, eastwards and northwards, Catherine looked out upon a wild sea of moors wrapped in mists, sullen and storm-beaten, while to the left the clouds hung deepest and inkiest over the high points of the Ullswater mountains. Robert Elsmere
  • If Captain Sullenberger doesn't like the label hero, he would probably like sage even less. Stress: Better for Us Than We Think
  • They are likely to be sullen, resentful, and bitter the rest of their working lives. THE ESSENTIAL DRUCKER
  • The kindness I encountered last year is absent; a western face brings a sullen welcome, calibrated to the bare minimum.
  • Tom never disobeyed his father, for Mr. Tulliver was a peremptory man, and, as he said, would never let anybody get hold of his whip-hand; but he went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of plumcake, and not intending to reprieve Maggie’s punishment, which was no more than she deserved. V. Tom Comes Home. Book I—Boy and Girl
  • Imagine the moody dronings of God Speed You Black Emperor, or Spaceman 3 and then add beautifully moody and sullen vox courtesy of Aurelio Valle.
  • In his day job, Smith was part of the crew that helped tow US Airways flight 1549 along the Hudson River to Battery Park City in January 2009, after pilot Chesley Sullenberger safely landed the plane in the water and ferryboat operators hauled off all 155 people on board. Athletes, Models: Who's Tougher?
  • They are likely to be sullen, resentful, and bitter the rest of their working lives. THE ESSENTIAL DRUCKER
  • If I do that, it will make him sullen and resentful and unmotivated to control his desire to hit when he is angry.
  • The sullen hills were flanked with light, and the valleys chined with shadow, and all the sombrous moors between awoke in furrowed anger. Lorna Doone
  • At length he made an attempt to attract the attention of the silent and sullen ponderer. Saint Ronan's Well
  • When we got to the terminal there were sullen holiday crowds waiting for their delayed luggage; ours took a week to arrive. Times, Sunday Times
  • Most often it doesn't and he goes all sullen and broody, muttering about fussy neighbours and piling even more garden waste on the smoking heap.
  • And Billy dances off again in newer glee, while the inspired musician is plunking a banjo imitation on his enchanted instrument, which is unceremoniously drowned out by a circus-tune from Doc that is absolutely inspiring to every one but the barefooted brother, who drops back listlessly to his old position on the floor and sullenly renews operations on his "chigger" claims. The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, Volume 10
  • In my mind's eye were the dirty yelling faces, the shaken fists, the hail of clods and brickbats that had knocked the Provost's hat off, the Peninsular veteran sergeant bawling to the wavering militia to hold their line, the snarling obscenities as the mob gave back sullenly before the bayonets, your correspondent near to soiling his fine Cherrypicker "breeks" with fear ... and this glowering inquisitor with his rasping voice and peeler's eyes remembered it, too. THE NUMBERS
  • She's jobless, husbandless, and only slightly less sullen and defensive than her teenage son and daughter when they're forced to return to her parents 'home so they all can have a roof over their heads. You Can Go Home Again
  • It may have sounded somewhat impudent, particularly in my sullen tone of voice.
  • She worried about her son, who had become sullen. Times, Sunday Times
  • By this point, a hush had fallen over the standing-room only bus crowd, mostly composed of giggling school kids and sullen working poor on their way to the salt mines.
  • It was fresh -- the smoke-curing had just begun -- and, save for the closed eyes, all the sullen handsomeness and animal virility of the boy, as Joan had known it, was still to be seen in the monstrous thing that twisted and dangled in the eddying smoke. Chapter 24
  • I tell the girl serving my story, hoping to break the sullenness of a graduate with the worst job in the world.
  • The sky is overcast and tough mining towns along the have the sullen air of relations off the wedding list. Times, Sunday Times
  • I'll yerk the sullen Devil out of you.
  • It is the same with his cynical suspiciousness and resentful sullenness.
  • – And indeed it was on these occasions that Mrs Rayland seemed to take peculiar pleasure in mortifying Mrs Somerive and her daughters; who dreaded these dinner days as those of the greatest penance; and who at Christmas, one of the periods of these formal dinners, have blest more than once the propitious snow; through which that important and magisterial personage, the body coachman of Mrs Rayland, did not choose to venture himself, or the six sleek animals of which he was sole governor; for on these occasions it was the established rule to send for the family, with the same solemnity and the same parade that had been used ever since the first sullen and reluctant reconciliation between Sir Hildebrand and his sister; when she dared to deviate from the fastidious arrogance of her family, and to marry a man who farmed his own estate – and who, though long settled as a very respectable land-owner, had not yet written Armiger after his name. The Old Manor House
  • As it was, his probably useful suggestions about potassium sorbate and arrested fermentation were met with a sullen, nervous chuckle. CHASING the WHITE DOG
  • In the case Thursday, Sullenberger was forced to glide because both engines were inoperative, which is highly unusual. Top Stories - Google News
  • As they turned towards the house, John rose, sullenly, and wrapping a handkerchief round his wounded arm, which was bleeding profusely, he glanced scowlingly at his brother. The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 39, January, 1861
  • They resented this ostent of entry; the men more sullenly than the women, some of whom in their hearts could not help admiring its high-and-mighty insolence. Lady Good-for-Nothing
  • Sullen (the name Th 'Cap'n blessed Her assailant with) turned down one of the many dingy alleyways and his' enforcers 'shoved the women after him. Cap'n Dyke, Lesbian Pirate Queen & Rogue Blogger
  • His direct, cooperative manner came as a refreshing change after the sullen reticence of the previous few days. RIOT
  • I find that, during my nonage, I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always a favourite of my schoolmaster, who used to say, “that my parts were solid, and would wear well.” Looking back to 1711
  • Once his father rallied him upon his "grumpiness"; then he grew sullen -- though trying to smile -- thinking with mortification of his grandfather. The Seeker
  • The jam around Samuel's mouth was like a big cheery grin, but his eyes remained sullen.
  • Most often it doesn't and he goes all sullen and broody, muttering about fussy neighbours and piling even more garden waste on the smoking heap.
  • His usual sullen insensibility is disrupted by unpredictable explosions of rage.
  • Those who should ask questions either do not bother to show up, knowing they will not be called, or sit in sullen silence.
  • They do not in sullenness deny him an answer, nor stand mute; but they tell him that they are in no care about it. Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume IV (Isaiah to Malachi)
  • Her eyes were small and brightly anxious, threaded with fine filaments of blood, and her aquiline nose was now a pug nose in which broken capillaries glowed with a sullen heat.
  • The bottom lip protrudes in sullen, worried anticipation.
  • Playing the malevolent, abrasive junkie single mother of a missing kidnap victim, a slatternly, slack-jawed racist, Ryan adopted a drunkard's waxen pallor, honked up the full braying working-class Boston accent and, in those seven minutes, ran a gamut of emotions, from sullen resentment to inappropriate levity and a final descent into abject sobbing – a magnificent shipwreck of a performance. Amy Ryan: the Isabelle Huppert of Hollywood
  • A couple of tourists are sitting in a brasserie on the Boulevard-St-Germain and their waiter is sullen, slow and brings the wrong order.
  • A voice from the ruins, like that of a sullen echo from the grave, answered, ‘Itat Schreckenwald!’ and the caitiff issued from his place of concealment, and stood before me with that singular indifference to danger which he unites to his atrocity of character. Anne of Geierstein
  • Such is the sullenness towards him in some constituencies of opinion that they don't want to hear him when he wants to reach out to them.
  • The residence of a smith was his first object of inquiry, in which he received little satisfaction from the dullness or sullenness of one or two peasants, early bound for their labour, who gave brief and indifferent answers to his questions on the subject. Kenilworth
  • For three days now you've been quiet at a tomb and almost sullen.
  • He just grabbed his cue and began lining up his shot, looking incredibly sullen.
  • It squats at the bottom of the pail like a sullen garden toad, refusing to budge.
  • She was frightened and ashamed, and the sullenness which is the refuge of most young people descended upon her like a darkness. Mary, Mary
  • Who, may I ask, is being "slapdash" and violating the requirements of the "sullen art" of literary criticism? Setting It Straight
  • I dare say you know two types of natives, which may be called the obsequious and the sullen? The Ebb-Tide
  • The day wore on and she preserved a sullen silence.
  • ‘Shannon, you really need to stop being so sullen,’ the quiet voice crooned over the phone.
  • After four hours, breakfast is still sitting in my stomach like a lead balloon, sullen and immobile.
  • ill-will" he describes as "an anger that endures and grows old," and this the Philosopher ascribes to "sullenness"; while he describes Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province
  • Now there appears in the doorway, the stalworth figure of the vote-cribber, who, with sullen face, advances mechanically toward Tom, pauses and regards him with an air of suspicion. An Outcast or, Virtue and Faith
  • The soldiers wore the downcast, silent, and sullen looks with which they trail their arms at a funeral, and stepped with such caution that you could not hear a buckler ring or a sword clatter, though so many men in armour were moving around the tent. The Talisman
  • she remarked to her sullen and uncommunicative temp as she wandered into her cubicle after the meeting. LOOKING FOR ANDREW MCCARTHY
  • France is peopled with patriots in red caps and tricoloured cockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, sullen and suspicious, who instinctively curse all aristocrats.
  • The offenders lapsed into a sullen silence.
  • Mounting the pulpit they appealed for calm and secured a sullen silence.
  • I was served by a sullen - faced youth.
  • In one, tongues of flame and wisps of smoke begin to emerge from the trailer's windows, while in another, the blaze has engulfed it, and a cloud of thick black smoke rises above the sullen trees into the leaden sky.
  • Acheron, from which were heard to sound, by sullen and intermitted fits, the penitential psalms which the Greek Church has appointed to be sung at executions. Count Robert of Paris
  • A grim meaning rose in the vacuous eye of Lovel; Isaacs caressed his diamond pin, smiling in a sickly fashion; McNamara's wandering stare fixed and grew unhumanly bright; Ufert openly dropped his hand on his gun-butt and stood sullenly defiant. Trailin'!
  • No wonder that the British have changed in character, their sturdy independence replaced with passivity, querulousness, or even, at the lower reaches of society, a sullen resentment that not enough has been or is being done for them.
  • a sullen crowd
  • The cartwright was a taciturn individual, although not sullen; he seemed simply to be unwilling to part with too many words. The Robin And The Kestrel
  • He would have gone moping about for years in disconsolate solitude, silent and sullen as a ghost, or would have rent the air with unavailing shrieks and lamentations. Review
  • Now began the native spleen of Oceana to be much purged, and men not to affect sullenness and pedantism. The Commonwealth of Oceana
  • He grinned at her, she smiled back, the first expression besides sullen pouting and imperial hauteur he'd seen.
  • But while the upper edges of the thickening cloud were bright as polished brass, underneath they were a sullen purple.
  • The west wind blew strong; the clouds were heavy; now and then the moon shone on a sullen sea; now and then the darkness broke over rank maremma vapours; at times he heard the distant bellowing of the herds, at times he heard the moaning of the water; mighty cities, lost armies, slaughtered hosts, foundered fleets, were underneath that soil and sea; whole nations had their sepulchres on that low, wind-blown shore. Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida Selected from the Works of Ouida
  • He was a hard-faced man of sixty-two, sullen and morose in an old flying jacket and tweed cap, a grey stubble covering his chin. CONFESSIONAL
  • She worried about her son, who had become sullen. Times, Sunday Times
  • Rugeley is the worst of these; for it seems to have fallen back - from the staring red brick, perfectly modern, outworks that can get nothing to do - upon the old village street, which is built of sad, sullen-looking dirty-brown stone, miserable without the once-adjoining fields, and most disheartening to the passenger from the utterly unprosperous look of the place.
  • Yes, for all his sullen looks, there was something saintly about him. Somewhere East of Life
  • The valses are the most objective of the Chopin works, and in few of them is there more than a hint of the sullen, Sargasson seas of the nocturnes and scherzi. Chopin : the Man and His Music

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