Word.ws English Dictionary

scowl

/skaʊl/

scowl noun: the wrinkling of the brows or face in frowning; the expression of displeasure, sullenness, or discontent in the countenance; an angry frown.

scowl: the wrinkling of the brows or face in frowning; the expression of displeasure, sullenness, or...
Image: Steven Depolo from Grand Rapids, MI, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

scowl (plural scowls)

  1. The wrinkling of the brows or face in frowning; the expression of displeasure, sullenness, or discontent in the countenance; an angry frown.
    • She made a scowl.
  2. (broadly) Gloom; dark or threatening aspect.
    • Mr. Pynsent, who had asked Miss Amory to dance, came up on one occasion to claim her hand, but scowls of recognition having already passed between him and Mr. Arthur Pendennis in the dancing-room, Arthur suddenly rose up and claimed Miss Amory as his partner for the present dance […]1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 46, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...

Verb

scowl (third-person singular simple present scowls, present participle scowling, simple past and past participle scowled)

  1. (intransitive) To wrinkle the brows, as in frowning or displeasure; to put on a frowning look; to look sour, sullen, severe, or angry.
    • She scould, and frownd with froward countenaunce1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 35
  2. (broadly, intransitive) To look gloomy, dark, or threatening; to lower.
    • The scowling heavens.a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Summer”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC
  3. (transitive) To look at or repel with a scowl or a frown.
    • to scowl a rival into submission
  4. (transitive) To express by a scowl.
    • to scowl defiance

Noun (2)

scowl (uncountable)

  1. (UK, dialectal, obsolete) Old workings of iron ore.

scowl meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

scowl in Tamil

முகஞ்சுளி

scowl in Urdu

تیور, تیوری دکھانا

scowl in Bengali

রুক্ষ দৃষ্টি, ভ্রু কুঁচকানো

scowl in Malayalam

frown, glower, glare
തുറിച്ചുനോക്കുക, പുരികം കോട്ടി തുറിച്ചുനോക്കുക, കോപത്തോടെ നോക്കുക, ക്രുദ്ധമായി നോക്കുക, ദേഷ്യത്തിൽ നോക്കുക, നെറ്റിചുളിക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
scowl in Kannada
ಹುಬ್ಬುಗಂಟು, ಸಿಡುಕು ಮೋರೆ, ಮುಖ ಸಿಂಡರಿಕೆ, ಹುಬ್ಬುಗಂಟಿಕ್ಕು
scowl in Arabic
عُبُوس ʕubūs, عَبَسَ ʕabasa
scowl in Persian
دژبرویی dožboruyi

Examples of scowl in a sentence

  • The bouncer was a big, buff dude with tattoos, a shaved head, and a serious scowl.
  • He clumsily made a pass at the prom queen, and she responded with a scowl.
  • At least until the Magistra rushed into the room, her face set in a grim scowl.

All 40 example sentences with scowl

Forms of scowl

Noun
pluralscowls
Verb
third-person singular presentscowls
present participlescowling
past participlescowled
pastscowled

Plural of scowl: scowls

Origin of scowl

From Middle English scowlen, scoulen, skoulen (also as Middle English schoulen), probably of North Germanic origin. Compare Danish skule (“to scowl”), Norwegian skule (“to scowl”).

Words formed from scowl

Words that rhyme with scowl

15 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about scowl

What does scowl mean?
Scowl means the wrinkling of the brows or face in frowning; the expression of displeasure, sullenness, or discontent in the countenance; an angry frown.
What is scowl in Tamil?
Scowl in Tamil is முகஞ்சுளி. See Scowl meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is scowl?
Scowl can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce scowl?
Scowl is pronounced /skaʊl/.
What is the plural of scowl?
The plural of scowl is scowls.

Words near scowl in the dictionary

  1. scower
  2. scowered
  3. scowering
  4. scowers
  5. scowing
  6. scowl
  7. scowled
  8. scowler
  9. scowlers
  10. scowlest
  11. scowleth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scowl (page history and authors); scowl (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); scowl (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); scowl (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); scowl (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); scowl (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-scowl.ogg.

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