What's the difference between sulk and sullen?

Sulk


Definition:

  • (n.) A furrow.
  • (v. i.) To be silently sullen; to be morose or obstinate.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But his 12-seat majority is slender: it could be overturned by a single surge of rebellious fury, or a big backbench sulk.
  • (2) But last week – last week … Last week there was a sudden burst of sunshine after weeks of sulking sky.
  • (3) "I say to those Tory MPs who share our views and our aspirations: 'Why don't you stop sulking in secret in the corridors of Westminster and come out of the closet?
  • (4) The marching boots were thrown to the back of the cupboard and you went into a major sulk.
  • (5) He has been accused by the Eurosceptic press of treachery, a vanishing act and a euro sulk.
  • (6) Her cat is in a sulk, she says, because he hasn't been getting enough attention because of all the fuss.
  • (7) There was no national outrage over Sulk’s murder, nor over the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Laramie girl, Christin Lamb, that summer.
  • (8) He loves the club and the team and he is an incredible professional, so I don’t think you would ever expect him to sulk,” Martínez said.
  • (9) Certainly, better act to change your destiny than do what Edward Heath did after being beaten in the Conservative leadership election of 1975 until his death 30 years later: sulk.
  • (10) The novelist Lord (Michael) Dobbs was one of many Tories to lay into their coalition partner, accusing Clegg of "a great political sulk", after the Liberal Democrats withdrew support in retribution for the failure to complete a deal to reform the House of Lords last year.
  • (11) But stagnation remains the cloud loitering overhead, and, if the economy sulks its way through 2012 and living standards continue to fall, the polls may shift as voters' patience wears out.
  • (12) But then what is known in Whitehall as the "Lansley sulk" over his 18-month opposition to the policy of setting a minimum price for alcohol meant he was never going to stand up in parliament to defend it.
  • (13) Instead, the Australian electorate is watching aghast as Labor's two major political stars plot and sulk and tear each other apart in public – and fight to the death in a secret party ballot.
  • (14) People try masking this emotion or express it in specific ways nonverbally, such as sulking or not eating.
  • (15) Now there were three people sulking in the House, though Gove looked slightly more cheerful.
  • (16) No sulking or feeling sorry for themselves after such an unfortunate goal; just a quiet determination to get an equalizer.
  • (17) They're also close to wrapping up deals for Sevilla's Alvaro Negredo and Fiorentina's Stevan Jovetic and could battle Chelsea for the signing of PSG's Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who's in a sulk about the arrival of Edinson Cavani.
  • (18) When he came to see the computer tortoises in 1951 – they responded to light and scuttled back home when the bulb was switched on in their hutches – he also managed to break a game playing computer by recognising the work of a protege and cracking the algorithm on the spot: the computer flashed both "you've won" and "you've lost" messages at him, and then shut itself down in a sulk.
  • (19) Lots of Blairites left in a sulk because David Miliband wasn’t leader and it is generally the case that those that then joined are sympathetic to the leader,” said the source.
  • (20) The point is, I didn’t make the cut, and you know, you kind of think, fine, I understand Nick’s got to make tough choices, and there’s no point sulking.” So he decided to run for party president instead.

Sullen


Definition:

  • (a.) Lonely; solitary; desolate.
  • (a.) Gloomy; dismal; foreboding.
  • (a.) Mischievous; malignant; unpropitious.
  • (a.) Gloomily angry and silent; cross; sour; affected with ill humor; morose.
  • (a.) Obstinate; intractable.
  • (a.) Heavy; dull; sluggish.
  • (n.) One who is solitary, or lives alone; a hermit.
  • (n.) Sullen feelings or manners; sulks; moroseness; as, to have the sullens.
  • (v. t.) To make sullen or sluggish.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Most defendants in multimillion-euro fraud cases turn up to court ashen-faced and sullen-looking.
  • (2) Broadly defined, this sort of behaviour involves procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, obstructionism, self-pity and a tendency to create chaotic situations.
  • (3) The result is a weird kind of dissonance: blogs and op-ed pieces written in London salivate over "the most important byelection in 30 years" and claim – with some justification – that its outcome will have profound consequences for the two coalition parties, while most locals view it all with a sullen detachment.
  • (4) They were instantly swamped by sunlight; more the sullen accused on trial than Her Majesty's front bench.
  • (5) "Even a total stranger could experience the chilling effect of seeing sullen pairs of the Guardia Civil walking the street."
  • (6) In his memoir , Brown’s former aide Damian McBride candidly describes the thrill of having the ear of one of the most powerful men in the land – though he confesses the prime minister would “stare at [him] sullenly for a moment or two, then say: ‘Get me Ed Balls.’” I certainly met plenty of chiefs of staff and spin doctors who jealously guarded their privileged access to a particular politician and their status as that MP’s “vicar on Earth”.
  • (7) Against a backdrop described by the King's Fund thinktank as "deepening pessimism about the ability of the NHS to make ends meet, particularly in 2015-16", many on the health side are sullenly resentful of "their" money going into the BCF.
  • (8) Factor analysis of this brief inventory resulted in eight factors: disorientation, impaired concentration and thinking, paranoid-hallucinatory symptoms, anxiety, sullen inadequacy (restraint depression), hostility, loss of control, giving up.
  • (9) Through a double-glazed window in an adjacent room, a sullen security guard in khaki watches over all.
  • (10) Shortly after midnight Friday, partygoers belted Purple Rain together, a notably moving moment amid a sullen day.
  • (11) That sullen death-stare she perfected as April in Parks & Rec should come in handy somewhere on the dark side, perhaps as a female Sith Lord – a Sith Lady, if you will.
  • (12) If you’re sensing that the Mill is bored, or better yet, indifferent, or better yet, showing all the sullen ardour of a husband obliging himself to make love to his wife in the thick of a carnal indifference, then take your right hand, place it over your left shoulder and give yourself a big old pat on the back.
  • (13) I interviewed G-Unit once (minus the banged-up Tony Yayo) and they were the antithesis of the sullen, aggressive rapper stereotype (although they did turn their noses up at the very idea of letting any of the "British food" at their 5-star hotel pass their lips, and sent their manager out for a McDonalds instead).
  • (14) There are roadblocks manned by sullen-looking teenagers cradling AK-47s, but no meaningful law and order.
  • (15) Behind came a straggling caravan of mules and porters, including a couple of teenage boys who watched the college girls with sullen fascination.
  • (16) McFadden's penalty brought City a point, at which point William Gallas went all precious, attacking an advertising board and sitting sullenly on the pitch after the final whistle.
  • (17) A period as manager of Port Vale, after Stoke had rather sullenly parted company with him, reducing his wages and refusing him complimentary tickets, was ill-starred.
  • (18) It made him look sullen, grumpy and at worst disengaged from his challenger.
  • (19) Obscenity is lecherous and sullen in regard to women and virulent towards men: it may then be interpreted as a mean of struggle against the anxiety of death.
  • (20) Manchester United survived a couple of scares in 2008 at Wigan, but ultimately won 2-0 comfortably, while in 2010 Chelsea romped to an 8-0 victory over Wigan at Stamford Bridge as United sullenly and pointlessly beat Stoke City 4-0 at home.