sur·ly
adjective surlier sur·li·er,
surliest sur·li·est - Sullenly ill-humored; gruff.
- Threatening, as of weather conditions; ominous: surly clouds filled the sky.
- Obsolete Arrogant; domineering.
Origin: Middle English sirly, masterful, lordly, from sir, lord; see sir .
Related Forms:
Word History: That the word
surly means “churlish” nicely indicates its fall in status.
Churlish derives from the word
churl, which in its Old English form
ceorl meant “a man without rank, a member of the lowest rank of freemen,” as well as “peasant.” In Old English
ceorl may have been a term of contempt; it certainly became one in Middle English, where
cherl meant “base fellow, boor,” with
churlish descending in meaning accordingly.
Surly, on the other hand, started life at the top of the scale. In Middle English and Early Modern English,
surly was only one spelling for this word; another,
sirly, reflects its origin in
sir, the term of honor for a knight or for a person of rank or importance.
Sirly, the form under which the early spellings of the word are entered in the
Oxford English Dictionary, first meant “lordly.”
Surly, entered as a separate word in the
OED and first recorded in 1566, meant perhaps “lordly, majestic,” in its earliest use and was subsequently used in the sense “masterful, imperious, arrogant.” As the gloss “arrogant” makes clear, the word
surly could have a negative sense, and it is this area of meaning that is responsible for the current “churlish” sense of the word.
