lour

English

WOTD – 27 June 2019

Etymology

The verb is derived from Middle English louren, lour, loure (“to frown or scowl; to be dark or overcast; to droop, fade, wither; to lurk, skulk”), probably from Old English *lūran, *lūrian, from Proto-Germanic *lūraną (“to lie in wait, lurk”).

The English word is cognate with Danish lure (“to lie in ambush; to take a nap”), Middle Dutch loeren (modern Dutch loeren (“to lurk, spy on”)), Middle Low German lûren (“to lie in ambush”), German Low German luren (“to lurk”), Middle High German lūren (“to lie in ambush”) (modern German lauern (“to lie in ambush; to lurk”)), Icelandic lúra (“to take a nap”), Saterland Frisian luurje (“to lie in wait”), West Frisian loere (“to lurk”), and Swedish lura (“to lie in ambush; to deceive, fool, trick; to lure; to take a nap”); and is related to lurk.

The noun is derived from the verb.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈlaʊə/, /ˈlaʊ.ə/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈlaʊɚ/, /ˈlaʊɹ/, /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 frown; to look sullen.

   Synonyms: glower, scowl

   • 1700, [John] Dryden, “Homer’s Ilias”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, book I, page 215:

     [...] Juno took her place:
     But ſullen Diſcontent ſat lowring on her Face.

   • 1814, [Lord Byron], “[Lara, a Tale.] Canto I.”, in Lara, a Tale. Jacqueline, a Tale, London: […] [F]or J[ohn] Murray, […], [b]y T[homas] Davison, […], →OCLC, stanza XV, pages 20–21, lines 251–255:

     And solace sought he none from priest nor leech, / And soon the same in movement and in speech, / As heretofore he fill'd the passing hours, / Nor less he smiles, nor more his forehead lours / Than these were wont; [...]

   • 1840 May, “Art. V.—Travels in Koordistan and Mesopotamia. By Ja[me]s Baillie Fraser. London: 1840.”, in The Dublin Review, volume VIII, number XVI, London: C[harles] Dolman, […] (Nephew and successor to J. Booker.) […], →OCLC, page 432:

     Their lank black hair hung round their black visages; and the only points of relief in the wild countenance which loured from under their strange head-dresses, were the dark, piercing eyes, and the white teeth.

2. (intransitive, figuratively) To be dark, gloomy, and threatening, as clouds; of the sky: to be covered with dark and threatening clouds; to show threatening signs of approach, as a tempest.
   • c. 1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Sims [and Peter Short] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1597, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     Now is the winter of our diſcontent,
     Made glorious ſummer by this ſonne of Yorke:
     And all the cloudes that lowrd vpon our houſe,
     In the deepe boſome of the Ocean buried.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 870–874:

     And with them comes a third of Regal port, / But faded ſplendor wan; who by his gate / And fierce demeanour ſeems the Prince of Hell, / Not likely to part hence without conteſt; / Stand firm, for in his look defiance lours.

   • 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 1:

     The Dawn is over-caſt, the Morning low’rs,
     And heavily in Clouds brings on the Day, […]

   • 1788 July, “Meteorological Diaries for July, 1788; and for August, 1787”, in Sylvanus Urban [pseudonym; Edward Cave], editor, The Gentleman’s Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, volume XXV, London: Printed by John Nichols, for D. Henry, […], published January 1755, →OCLC, page 570:

     Weather in Auguſt, 1787. [...] dark, louring, cool, briſk ſhower.

   • 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter VI, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume III, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 125:

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

   • 1846, R[obert] S[tephen] Hawker, “The Wreck”, in Echoes from Old Cornwall, London: Joseph Masters, […], →OCLC, stanza X, page 76:

     And still when loudliest howls the storm, / And darkliest lowers his native sky, / The king's fierce soul is in that form, / The warrior's spirit threatens nigh!

   • 1873, Agnes Strickland, chapter VIII, in Lives of the Queens of England, from the Norman Conquest. [...] In Six Volumes, new revised and augmented edition, volume VI, London: Bell & Daldy, […], →OCLC, page 285:

     The queen's letter coming up to the duchess's own ideas of her own deserts, she condescended to speak on the subject which had caused such portentous blackness to lour on her countenance, on her first meeting her royal mistress.

   • 1891, Euripides, “The Phœnician Maidens”, in Edward P[hilip] Coleridge, transl., The Plays of Euripides: Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley (Bohn’s Classical Library), volume II, London: George Bell & Sons, […], →OCLC, page 230:

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

   • 1922 October, A[lfred] E[dward] Housman, “[Poem] IX”, in Last Poems, London: Grant Richards Ltd., →OCLC, stanza 6, page 25, lines 21–22:

     If here to-day the cloud of thunder lours / To-morrow it will hie on far behests; [...]

Alternative forms

• lower

Derived terms

• louring, lowering (noun)
• louringly, loweringly

Translations

to frown; to look sullen

• Czech: mračit se (cs) impf, chmuřit se impf, kabonit se impf, zamračit se pf, zachmuřit se pf
• Finnish: murjottaa (fi)

to be dark, gloomy, and threatening, as clouds

• Czech: mračit se (cs) impf, kabonit se impf
• Finnish: uhata (fi)

Noun

lour (plural lours)

1. A frown, a scowl; an angry or sullen look.
   • 1798, attributed to Richard Griffith or Laurence Sterne, The Koran: Or, Essays, Sentiments, Characters, and Callimachies, of Tria Juncta in Uno, M.N.A. or Master of No Arts. Three Volumes Complete in One, volume II, Vienna: Printed for R[udolf] Sammer, bookseller, →OCLC, paragraph 49, page 156:

     I have ſuch averſion to ill temper, that I could ſooner forgive my wife adultery, than croſſneſs. I cannot taſte Caſſio's kiſs on her lips; but I can ſee a lour on her brow.

2. (figuratively) Of the sky, the weather, etc.: a dark, gloomy, and threatening appearance.

   Synonyms: gloom, gloominess

Translations

frown, scowl; angry or sullen look — see also frown,‎ scowl

dark, gloomy, and threatening appearance

Old French

Alternative forms

• lur

Pronoun

lour m or f

1. their (third-person plural possessive pronoun)

Old Irish

Alternative forms

• roar (archaic)
• loor, lór

Etymology

Definitely connected with Welsh llawer (“a lot”). There are two possibilities:

• The usual etymology, from Thurneysen onwards, derives the term from Proto-Celtic *ɸroweros. This may be connected to roär found in law texts. The initial /l/ is assumed to have arisen from dissimilation.
• Matasović instead reconstructs Proto-Celtic *laweros. He further derives this etymon from Proto-Indo-European *leh₂w- (“benefit, prize”), from which also Ancient Greek λᾱρός (lārós, “tasty”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈl͈o.ur/

Adjective

lour

1. enough, sufficient
   • c. 845, St Gall Glosses on Priscian, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1975, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. II, pp. 49–224, Sg. 159^a3

     Is airi ní táet comṡuidigud fri rangabáil, húare as coibnesta do bréthir: ar is lour comṡuidigud fri suidi, air bid comṡuidigud etarscartha comṡuidigud rangabálae.

     This is why composition does not occur with a participle, because it is akin to a verb: for composition with the latter is sufficient, for composition of a participle will be separated composition.

Inflection

Always predicative (and therefore mainly used in the nominative) in Old Irish, but the Middle Irish descendant lór is used attributively.

o/ā-stem
Singular	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominative	lour	lour	lour
Vocative	loïr* lour**
Accusative	lour	loïr
Genitive	loïr	lóire	loïr
Dative	lour	loïr	lour
Plural	Masculine	Feminine/neuter
Nominative	loïr	lóra
Vocative	lóru lóra†
Accusative	lóru lóra†
Genitive	lour
Dative	lóraib
Notes	*modifying a noun whose vocative is different from its nominative **modifying a noun whose vocative is identical to its nominative † not when substantivized

Derived terms

• lourtu

Descendants

• Middle Irish: lór
  • Irish: leor
  • Manx: liooar
  • Scottish Gaelic: leòr

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
lour also llour after a proclitic ending in a vowel	lour pronounced with /l(ʲ)-/	unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “lór”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• Matasović, Ranko (2009) “*ufo-lawto-”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 9), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, pages 397–98