Word.ws English Dictionary

louring

louring is the present participle and gerund of lour.

Meaning of lour

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To frown; to look sullen.
    • [...] Juno took her place:
      But ſullen Diſcontent ſat lowring on her Face.1700, [John] Dryden, “Homer’s Ilias”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, book I, page 215
    Synonyms:
    glower, scowl
  2. (figuratively, intransitive) 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.
    • 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.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...

See all 4 meanings of lour

Noun

louring (plural lourings)

  1. The act of one who, or that which, lours.
    • Times are they fraught with peril, trouble, gloom; / We have to mark their lourings and to face them.1904-1908, Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts

Forms of louring

plurallourings

Origin of louring

From Middle English louryng, louringe, lowrynge, later variant of lourand, lowrand, lourande, lowrande, equivalent to lour + -ing. Cognate with Dutch loerend (“lurking, louring”).

From Middle English louring, lowrynge, luring, equivalent to lour + -ing.

Words formed from louring

Questions about louring

What does louring mean?
Louring means the act of one who, or that which, lours.
What is louring the present participle and gerund of?
Louring is the present participle and gerund of lour.
What part of speech is louring?
Louring is a noun.
What is the plural of louring?
The plural of louring is lourings.

Words near louring in the dictionary

  1. loureth
  2. Lourett
  3. louri
  4. lourie
  5. louries
  6. louring
  7. louringly
  8. lourings
  9. louris
  10. lours
  11. loury

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: louring (page history and authors); lour (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “louring.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/louring. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.