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dour

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: dōur and ďour

English

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WOTD – 8 November 2010

Etymology 1

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From Middle English dour (“severe”), originally from Early Scots dour (14th c.), of uncertain origin. Usually derived from Latin dūrus (“hard, stern”),[1][2] but the vowel is problematic.[3] One way of circumventing this problem is by assuming it was borrowed through (or influenced by) Scottish Gaelic dùr, from Middle Irish dúr,[4] itself from the Latin.[5] Doublet of dure.

The pronunciation with /ʊ/ is based on Scots and northernmost English dialects. That with /aʊ̯/ is the regular development in most of England, but may also be a spelling pronunciation. (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “At what time did the word enter standard English?”)

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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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, page 149, translation of Gratis geld voor iedereen by Rutger Bregman:
      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.
    • 2025 September 9, Phil McNulty, “Serbia 0-5 England”, in BBC Sport‎[1], archived from the original on 21 September 2026:
      Tuchel arrived in Belgrade insisting England were ready to improve and show their quality after the dour victories that have characterised their World Cup qualification campaign.
  2. Unyielding and obstinate.
    Synonym: stubborn
  3. Expressing gloom or melancholy.
    Synonyms: dejected, gloomy, melancholic, sullen
Derived terms
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Translations
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References

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  1. ^ “dour”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “dour”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
  3. ^ “dour”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from William A[lexander] Craigie, A[dam] J[ack] Aitken [et al.], editors, A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1931–2002, →OCLC.
  4. ^ “dour”, in Oxford Learner's Dictionaries
  5. ^ Kim McCone (2005), A First Old Irish Grammar and Reader, Maynooth University, page 243: “dúr (adj. I/II < Lat. durus): ‘hard’”.

Etymology 2

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Noun

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dour (plural dours)

  1. Alternative form of daur.
    • 1857, Allen's Indian Mail and Register of Intelligence, page 545:
      The detachment that went out the day before yesterday on a dour have not returned: the party consisted of 200 Highlanders and 100 Sikhs, also twenty horsemen.

Anagrams

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Breton

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Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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Noun

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dour m (plural dourioù or doureier)

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

Derived terms

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Mutation

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

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Breton.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Champenois

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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dour m

  1. alternative form of jou

Scots

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Etymology

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Probably Scottish Gaelic dùr (“dull, obstinate, stubborn”), from Middle Irish dúr, ultimately from Latin dūrus (“hard, stern”).[1] Alternatively, possibly from Old French dur (“hard”), although the vowel development is irregular.[2]

Adjective

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dour

  1. stern, severe, relentless, dour

References

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  1. ^ “dour”, in Oxford Learner's Dictionaries
  2. ^ “dour, adj..”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from William A[lexander] Craigie, A[dam] J[ack] Aitken [et al.], editors, A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1931–2002, →OCLC.
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