What's the difference between dour and grim?

Dour


Definition:

  • (a.) Hard; inflexible; obstinate; sour in aspect; hardy; bold.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Reports from the scenes of Muslim Brotherhood and Freedom and Justice Party rallies conveyed a dour mood in Cairo, while active clashes were reported in both coastal cities and upper Egypt.
  • (2) There’s hard work and dour activities and that’s what I’m going to be doing.” Corbyn and his deputy, Tom Watson , are expected to make regular – and more public – visits to Scotland to help Scottish Labour avoid a further rout at next May’s Holyrood elections; the latest opinion polls suggest the SNP is on course to win a second successive overall majority with its approval ratings at more than 50%.
  • (3) However, as we watch Blade Runner , Deckard doesn’t feel like a replicant; he is dour and unengaged, but lacks his victims’ detached innocence, their staccato puzzlement at their own untrained feelings.
  • (4) Reith, “his dour handsome face scarred like that of a villain in a melodrama”, was “a strange shepherd for such a mixed, bohemian flock … he had under his aegis a bevy of ex-soldiers, ex-actors, ex-adventurers which … even a Dartmoor prison governor might have had difficulty in controlling”.
  • (5) The dour Zenawi could not resist a swipe at western pundits who had once written off Africa.
  • (6) A spectacular fall from grace on the pitch – from first to seventh, playing dour football that is anathema to fans who feasted on success throughout the Ferguson era – will also lead to renewed scrutiny of the club's controversial US owners, the Glazer family , away from it.
  • (7) The seafront was grey and almost deserted; outside the dour concrete venue, there was a single delegate having a blustery cigarette.
  • (8) But it was in westerns that Peck's dour integrity showed itself best: unshaven and tough in Yellow Sky (1948); a dude learning to adapt to the west in The Big Country (1958); and obsessively after the men who raped and killed his wife in The Bravados (1958).
  • (9) On Tuesday, the bunkhouse breakfast room felt like a hunting lodge, with wives and girlfriends serving meals while working-class men with beards, flannel shirts and dour expressions milled about.
  • (10) Milosevic himself, until then a dour and orthodox communist, appeared to realise his gift for rhetoric and the power of nationalism.
  • (11) Saki (Hector Hugh Munro, 1870-1916) was raised by his strict, dour aunts and grandmother, and was gay but closeted all his life – for good reason, since homosexual acts between men were still illegal.
  • (12) Fun is fun, and please don't try and stop people having fun, things are dour enough as it is."
  • (13) Because there is no ‘message’ – there’s just Jeremy!” Membership Event: Guardian Live | The future of Labour: meet the next leader By the end of the night, even the dour stewards were applauding.
  • (14) This late action made the preceding dour fare seem all the more disappointing.
  • (15) We were told he would be the dour, humourless lefty; and again he has been a challenge to expectations.
  • (16) We talk some more about Mad Men , about: "The swirl and sound and fury of it… For a show that is as dour and moody and pendulous as ours, we have fun."
  • (17) George averaged only 14.5 points and six rebounds in the first two games of the series and started slowly against on Friday before gathering pace in the dour encounter.
  • (18) The two TV presenters broadcasting from the crowd – she in a gold-spangled minidress and rigid curls, him dour in black tie – shot baleful looks in his direction as he carried on honking.
  • (19) Murray is a bit dour true to his Scottish nature but he is an excellent player.
  • (20) Jeremy Corbyn conceded that it would not be easy to revive Labour’s position in Scotland but promised “hard work and dour activities” as he made his first visit to the nation since his election as party leader.

Grim


Definition:

  • (Compar.) Of forbidding or fear-inspiring aspect; fierce; stern; surly; cruel; frightful; horrible.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This is the grim Fury on a rainy winter morning in Cannes.
  • (2) The level of prescribing of opioid painkillers – Percocet in Geni’s case – has soared, and with it the incidence of addiction, and addiction’s grim best friend: fatal overdoses.
  • (3) Patients with anti-NC1 antibodies were characterised by linear immune deposits along the glomerular basement membrane and the clinical outcome was invariably grim.
  • (4) The Mail branded the deal "a grim day for all who value freedom" and, like the Times, accused David Cameron of crossing the Rubicon and threatening press freedom for the first time since newspapers were licensed in the 17th century.
  • (5) ARD TV showing grim-faced FDP cadres: could this be the first time they fall out of national parliament in 60 years?
  • (6) It has said a better productivity performance and rising North Sea oil revenues will make the budgetary position less grim.
  • (7) Shields accepted that the Irish appeared more inclined to send up their grim fiscal situation than go out and riot.
  • (8) Inside the Islamic State ‘capital’: no end in sight to its grim rule Read more The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia and an alliance of rebels known as the “Euphrates Volcano” – backed US-led coalition air strikes – have seized swaths of territory from Isis, including the strategic border town of Tal Abyad .
  • (9) Yet, if that flurry of form pepped optimism, the injuries and displays in recent friendlies have provided a grim reality check.
  • (10) The dark, luxury air in the silent bedrooms of empty riverside apartments, their identical curving blocks clustered in threes and fours, grim and silent as gill slits, will be theirs.
  • (11) Chinese media and bloggers published images of three young children in blue school uniforms lying dead on the pavement – a grim echo of the high casualty rate at poorly constructed schools in Sichuan in 2008, when a bigger quake killed 87,000 people.
  • (12) The BCC survey represents a turnround from the end of last year, when it was predicting stagflation – a grim combination of zero growth and inflation.
  • (13) The human rights organisation, which has produced a series of in-depth reports detailing the grim working conditions of many of the 1.5 million migrant labourers engaged in a huge construction boom, said “little has changed in law, policy and practice” since the government promised limited reforms 12 months ago.
  • (14) Carcinoma of unknown histogenesis or primary site is an increasingly recognized syndrome regarded by most physicians as having a grim prognosis.
  • (15) "There are times when a swingeing sentence can act as a deterrent", as the judge at the trial was grimly to pronounce.
  • (16) The footage beamed back from the liberated districts of Ramadi is grim: a ghost town littered with debris and smashed concrete, destroyed storefronts, plumes of smoke, the sound of gunfire piercing the air as Iraqi soldiers speak on camera.
  • (17) It was my shortcomings as coach that caused this result,” said a grim-faced South Korea manager, Hong Myung-bo, who spent most of the post-match press-conference scratching his nose in apparent distress and deflecting comments about whether he would stay on as manager until next year’s Asian Cup.
  • (18) After grim news on the recession, at least one thing should become clearer: going back to where we were is no longer an option.
  • (19) While deplorable and to a degree self-defeating, this insouciant defiance also makes a grim kind of sense, both historically and reinforced by recent events.
  • (20) The entity carries a grim visual prognosis, as all ten eyes initially had no perception of light; improvement to light perception occurred in one instance.