What is sullen?

Famous quotes containing the word sullen:

    Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
    Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
    Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
    Remembered tolling a departing friend.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
    For then he’s full of matter.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)