lour

English

Alternative forms

• lower etym. 2

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /ˈlaʊə/, X-SAMPA: /"laU@/
• (US) IPA: /ˈlaʊɚ/, X-SAMPA: /"laU@`/

Etymology

From Middle English lour (“sad or frowning countenance”), louren (“to frown or scowl; to be dark or overcast; look askant, mistrust; wither, fade, droop; lurk, skulk”)

Verb

lour (third-person singular simple present lours, present participle louring, simple past and past participle loured)

1. (intransitive) To be dark, gloomy, and threatening, as clouds; to be covered with dark and threatening clouds, as the sky; to show threatening signs of approach, as a tempest.
   • 1891, Euripides, E. P. Coleridge editor, The Phoenissae^[1]:

     Seek to be prosperous; once let fortune lour, and the aid supplied by friends is naught.

   • 1818, Mary Shelley, “Six”, in Frankenstein^[2]:

     The sun might shine, or the clouds might lour; but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before.

   • 1922, A. E. Housman, Last Poems, IX, lines 21-22

     If here to-day the cloud of thunder lours

     To-morrow it will hie on far behests;

   • 2007 March 29 quoting Judith, “Gordon Brown Meets the Ten Year Olds”, Dale's Diary, accessed on 2012-07-23:

     … the appalling burden of public service inflation-proof pensions that will lour over our children and grandchildren.

2. (intransitive) To frown; to look sullen.

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Old French

Alternative forms

• lur

Pronoun

lour m, f

1. their (third-person plural possessive pronoun)