Noun: sullen
| Singular | sullen |
| Plural | sullens |
Sample Sentences
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He sit neither with seint Johan, / Symond ne Jude, / Ne with maydenes ne with martires, / Confessours ne wydewes; / But by hymself as a soleyn, / And served on erthe. [c. 1377, William Langland, Piers Plowman, lines 7830–7835:]
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And let them die that age and sullens have; [1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act 2, scene 1], line 139:]
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If she be not sick of the sullens, I see not the least infirmity in her. [1632, Philip Massinger, “Act III. Scene IV.”, in The Emperor of the East:]
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[M]y brother […] charged my desire of being excused coming down to sullens, because a certain person had been spoken against, upon whom, as he supposed, my fancy ran. [1748, [Samuel Richardson], chapter 7, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume I, London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; [a]nd sold by A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:]
Nouns inflected like sullen
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English soleyn, from Anglo-Norman soleyn (“alone”), from Old French sole (“single, sole, alone”), from Latin sōlus (“by oneself alone”). The change in meaning from "single" to morose occurred in Middle English. See: Middle English Nouns '
soleyn', Latin Nouns '
sōlus'.