Word.ws English Dictionary

surly

UK/ˈsɜːli//ˈsɝli/

surly adjective: irritated, bad-tempered, unfriendly.

Adjective

surly (comparative surlier, superlative surliest)

  1. Irritated, bad-tempered, unfriendly.
  2. Threatening, menacing, gloomy.
    • The surly weather put us all in a bad mood.
  3. (obsolete) Lordly, arrogant, supercilious.

Adverb

surly (comparative surlier, superlative surliest)

  1. (obsolete) In an arrogant or supercilious manner.
    • Against the Capitol I met a lion / Who glazed upon me, and went surly by / Without annoying me […]1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

surly meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

surly in Tamil

கடுபுடு

surly in Urdu

آزردہ, درشت, کٹھور

surly in Malayalam

ദുശ്ശീലമുളള, മുഷിഞ്ഞ, മുഖം കറുത്ത, കൊടുങ്കാറ്റുള്ള

surly in Kannada

ಸೌಜನ್ಯವಿಲ್ಲದ, ಅಸಭ್ಯ, ವಕ್ರಬುದ್ಧಿಯ, ಸಿಡುಕು ಮುಖದ, ಸಿಡುಕಿನ, ಬಿರುಸು

Forms of surly

Adjective
comparativesurlier
superlativesurliest
Adverb
comparativesurlier
superlativesurliest

Origin of surly

16th-century alteration of sirly, from sir + -ly.

Words formed from surly

Words that rhyme with surly

6 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about surly

What does surly mean?
Surly means irritated, bad-tempered, unfriendly.
What is surly in Tamil?
Surly in Tamil is கடுபுடு. See Surly meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is surly?
Surly can be an adjective or an adverb.
How do you pronounce surly?
Surly is pronounced /ˈsɜːli/ (UK).

Words near surly in the dictionary

  1. surling
  2. surlings
  3. surloin
  4. surloins
  5. Surls
  6. surly
  7. surma
  8. surmai
  9. Surman
  10. Surmans
  11. surmark

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: surly (page history and authors); surly (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); surly (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); surly (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); surly (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-surly.ogg.

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