[app. f. SULK v.2 Cf. NFris. (Sylt) sulkig.]
1. Of persons and their actions: Silently and obstinately ill-humored; showing a tendency to keep aloof from others and repel their advances by refusing to speak or act.
1744. M. Bishop, Life & Adv., vi. 45. It is often seen in press’d Men that they are stubborn and sulky.
1790. Burns, Tam o’ Shanter, 10. Our hame, Whare sits our sulky sullen dame, Gathering her brows like gathering storm.
1821. Scott, Kenilw., iii. He has sulky ways too, breaking off intercourse with all that are of the place.
1834. G. P. R. James, J. Marston Hall, xi. My companion generally rode on in sulky silence.
1856. Ruskin, Elem. Drawing, ii. (1857), 134. The true zeal and patience of a quarter of an hour are better than the sulky and inattentive labour of a whole day.
1880. W. Harris, Serm. Boys & Girls (1881), 40. They were like … sulky children who would be pleased with nothing.
b. Of animals; spec. of a fish (cf. SULK v.2 b).
1810. Scott, Lady of L., I. x. Back limp’d … The sulky leaders of the chase.
1822. Lamb, Elia, I. Dream children. A great sulky pike hanging midway down the water.
1828. Davy, Salmonia, 30. I thought after a fish had been hooked, he remained sick and sulky for some time.
2. Of inanimate natural objects, the weather, etc.: Gloomy, dismal. Of things, with respect to their growth, progress or movement: Sluggish. Also, dial. difficult to work.
1817. W. Irving, in Life & Lett. (1864), I. 380. The weather is still sulky and threatening.
1825. Scott, 11 Oct., in Fam. Lett. (1894), II. xxiii. 350. One’s friends are not so easily entertained on such a sulky day as this.
1849. Cupples, Green Hand, ix. (1856), 85. A sulky patch of dark-gray sky.
1867. F. Francis, Angling, vii. 223. Some, again, are termed ‘sulky lakes,’ and are very hard to get fish from at all.
1886. Cheshire Gloss., Sulky,… applied to … rock which has no cleavage and is difficult to quarry, very cross-grained timber, &c.
1889. E. E. Green, in Ceylon Indep. (Cent. Dict.). The condition called sulky as applied to a tea-bush is unfortunately only too common on many estates.
1890. Clark Russell, Marriage at Sea, viii. The sulky undulations of the water.
1905. Daily News, 31 Aug., 6. The cream … gets ‘sulky,’ or it ‘goes to sleep,’ and then you may churn all day and get no result.
3. Comb., as sulky-looking adj.
1828. Lytton, Pelham, II. xxv. A few dull and sulky-looking fir-trees.
1844. H. Stephens, Bk. Farm, II. 692. The dull sulky-looking colt.
