Dour means stern, gloomy and unsmiling. A face that has never seen the joke.
The word suggests a settled temperament rather than a bad mood, so a dour man is like that permanently. It is strongly associated with Scotland in English writing, sometimes affectionately and sometimes not. Cricket borrows it as praise, since a dour innings is a stubborn defensive one that wins the match. The pronunciation is disputed and both versions are accepted. Grim and severe are its close relatives.
1adjectivedourStern, unsmiling and gloomy in manner.
“He gave a dour nod and said nothing.”
mga
dúr
Latin
dūrus — hard, stern
Scots
dour
English, today
dour
Scots dour, possibly from Latin dūrus (“hard, stern”), via mga dúr. Compare French dur, Catalan dur, Italian duro, Portuguese duro, Romanian dur, Spanish duro. a doublet of dure.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA