lour

English

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”), Old English lowren, luren. Compare Dutch loeren, German lauern (“lurk, be on the watch”), and English leer and lurk.

Alternative forms

• lower

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈlaʊə/, /ˈlaʊ.ə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈlaʊɚ/, /ˈlaʊ.ɚ/
• Rhymes: -aʊə(ɹ), -aʊ.ə(ɹ)

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.
   • 1623 [1593], William Shakespeare, Richard III (First Folio), act I, scene i

     And all the clouds that lowr'd vpon our houſe

   • 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;

   • 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,, “Gordon Brown Meets the Ten Year Olds”, in Dale's Diary^[3], retrieved 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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Dryden:

     But sullen discontent sat lowering on her face.

Related terms

• glower
• loweringly

Translations

to be dark, gloomy, and threatening, as clouds

• Finnish: uhata (fi)

to frown; to look sullen

• Finnish: murjottaa

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Old French

Alternative forms

• lur

Pronoun

lour m, f

1. their (third-person plural possessive pronoun)