dour

From Scots dour, from Latin dūrus (“hard, stern”), possibly via Middle Irish dúr. Compare French dur, German Dauer, Italian duro, Portuguese duro, Romanian dur, Spanish duro. Doublet of dure.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈdʊə/, /ˈdaʊə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈdʊɹ/, /ˈdaʊɚ/, /ˈdaʊ.ɚ/
• Rhymes: -aʊə(ɹ)
• Homophones: Daur, doer, dower (depending on speaker)
• Rhymes: -ʊə(ɹ)

dour (comparative dourer or more dour, superlative dourest or most dour)

1. Stern, harsh and forbidding.
   • 2017, Rutger Bregman, chapter 6, in Elizabeth Manton, transl., Utopia for Realists, Kindle edition, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 149:

     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.

2. Unyielding and obstinate.
3. Expressing gloom or melancholy; sullenly unhappy.

• (stern, harsh): forbidding, harsh, severe, stern
• (unyielding): obstinate, stubborn, unyielding
• (expressing gloom): dejected, gloomy, melancholic, sullen

• dourly
• dourness

• doru

From Proto-Brythonic *duβr, from Proto-Celtic *dubros, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰubrós (“deep”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈduːʁ/

dour m (plural dourioù or doureier)

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

From Middle Irish dúr, from Latin dūrus (“hard”).

dour

1. stern, severe, relentless, dour

• “dour” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.