[Source uncertain; perhaps related to SULKE a. Cf. NFris. (Sylt) sulke.] intr. To keep aloof from others in moody silence; to indulge in sullen ill-humor; to be sulky.
1781. Mme. D’Arblay, Diary, May. I still sulked on, vexed to be teased.
1794. W. Blake, Songs Exp., Inf. Sorrow, 8. I thought best To sulk upon my mother’s breast.
1852. W. Jerdan, Autobiog., I. xi. 82. My uncle … sulked a little at my not having made myself celebrated.
1861. Reade, Cloister & H., lxv. He sulked with his old landlady for thrusting gentle advice and warning on him.
1880. Daily Tel., 4 Oct. It is now thirteen years that we have been sulking with the Republic of Mexico.
b. transf. and fig. Of a fish: To remain in hiding and motionless when hooked. Of tea-plants: see quot. 1891. In quot. 1860 refl. with out: To go out ‘sulkily.’
1860. O. W. Holmes, Elsie V. (1887), 75. The lamps … sulked themselves out.
1873. Browning, Red Cott. Nt.-cap, 154. Sorrowful Sulked field and pasture with persistent rain.
1873. W. C. Prime, I go a-fishing, ii. 21. He started down stream, over a low fall and into a deep hole, where he sulked like a salmon.
1884. Sat. Rev., 12 July, 61/1. Mr. Williamson was occupied two hours and twenty minutes in landing an eight-pound trout which sulked!
1891. T. C. Owen, Tea Planting in Ceylon. When the foliage becomes too luxuriant, and they [sc. tea-bushes] sulk and no longer send out vigorous flushes.
1905. Sir F. Treves, Other Side of Lantern, II. ii. (1906), 33. Sluggish streams, sulking through a gully of sand and stones.
Hence Sulker, one who sulks; Sulkery (nonce-wd.), = BOUDOIR; Sulking vbl. sb. (also attrib. in sulking-room = BOUDOIR) and ppl. a.
1888. Chauncey M. Depew, in R. Conkling, 24. He called upon the sulkers to come to the front.
1906. Emily Hickey, in Month, July, 72. None among Beechy’s brothers had so often been castle, work-room, think-room, even sulkery, as they translated boudoir, as Beechy himself..
1816. Lady Byron, in Ld. Broughton’s Recoll. Long Life (1909), II. 203. Such a sitting-room or *sulking-room, all to yourself.
1880. Daily Tel., 4 Oct. Not all the sulking of which diplomacy is capable can restore Maximilian to life.
1778. Foote, Trip Calais, II. Wks. 1799, IV. 58. You sullen, *sulking, stomachful slut!
