Sultry means hot and still, with a storm on the way. A sultry afternoon, sultry heat, sultry and close.
The stillness and the humidity together are what make it sultry rather than merely hot — the air feels heavy and nothing moves. Applied to a person it means suggesting smouldering passion, which is a metaphor from the same heat. Note swelter, which comes from the same old verb meaning to be faint with heat.
1adjectivesultryHot and still, with a storm on the way.
“It was a sultry afternoon, and everyone was waiting for the storm to break.”
sultry is a quality of heat.
From an old verb sulter, a variant of swelter, meaning to be faint with heat. Sweltry is the older form.
From sulter + y; compare sweltry.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA