From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsullensul‧len /ˈsʌlən/ adjective 1 BAD-TEMPEREDangry and silent, especially because you feel life has been unfair to you → morose Bill sat in sullen silence and refused to eat his lunch. a look of sullen resentment2 literaryDNDARK a sullen sky or sea is dark and looks as if bad weather is coming SYN overcast —sullenly adverb —sullenness noun [uncountable]
Examples from the Corpus
sullen• The girl was sullen and uncooperative.• The little children were crying constantly, and the older ones were sullen and withdrawn.• Starvation gave a gaunt menace to their sullen anger - and they were angry, he could not doubt it.• They were tolerating that redhead well enough in spite of his sullen bad manners.• Dick just sat there with a sullen expression on his face, refusing to speak.• The three boys should have been at school with their ragged clothes, crew cuts and sullen eyes.• a sullen gray sky• A sullen grey July gave way to sultry August.• It makes you think about those sullen high schoolers in a different light, see their lives along a time line.Origin sullen (1300-1400) Probably from an unrecorded Anglo-French solein “single, solitary, sullen”, from Latin solus “alone” 