as in sulky
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Dissimilar Words
as in pouting
to silently go about in a bad mood
the toddler would sulk for hours whenever he didn't get his way
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of sulking
Literary Hub, 9 June 2026
Both girls said that Jenkins and Powell argued that day, and Powell appeared to be sulking.
—Nate Gartrell, Mercury News, 7 Feb. 2026
Shift work creates such high stress that it has been called shift sulking.
—Bryan Robinson, Forbes.com, 5 Jan. 2026
Davis, wearing a particularly Bo Peep-y set of pink panniers, turns the character into a masterpiece of clownery, sulking delightfully and throwing magnificent tantrums while her arrangement of topknots—the hair designer is Robert Pickens—bounces on her head like a prize curly lamb.
—Helen Shaw, New Yorker, 18 Dec. 2025
His owner shared a viral TikTok sound over the clip, from when another owner went through the very same thing with her own sulking dog.
—Rachael O'Connor, MSNBC Newsweek, 10 Sep. 2025
Spencer Nusbaum, New York Times, 19 May 2026
With that goal in mind, Dijkstra has constructed a scheme to ensure that King Radovid stops drinking and sulking over Jaskier and embraces his role as one of the few remaining leaders who can oppose Emhyr’s army.
—Scott Meslow, Vulture, 30 Oct. 2025
Still, Brown did not spend his offseason sulking.
—Sean Gregory, TIME, 2 Oct. 2024
No one is going to get better by sulking.
—Jim Ingraham, Forbes, 30 Sep. 2024
Adjective
In an accompanying cartoon, Spark is caricatured as a sulking giant, tottering above the Tuscan countryside in a pair of high heels.
—Literary Hub, 9 June 2026
Both girls said that Jenkins and Powell argued that day, and Powell appeared to be sulking.
—Nate Gartrell, Mercury News, 7 Feb. 2026
Shift work creates such high stress that it has been called shift sulking.
—Bryan Robinson, Forbes.com, 5 Jan. 2026
Davis, wearing a particularly Bo Peep-y set of pink panniers, turns the character into a masterpiece of clownery, sulking delightfully and throwing magnificent tantrums while her arrangement of topknots—the hair designer is Robert Pickens—bounces on her head like a prize curly lamb.
—Helen Shaw, New Yorker, 18 Dec. 2025
His owner shared a viral TikTok sound over the clip, from when another owner went through the very same thing with her own sulking dog.
—Rachael O'Connor, MSNBC Newsweek, 10 Sep. 2025
Verb
But nothing good came from sulking.
—Spencer Nusbaum, New York Times, 19 May 2026
With that goal in mind, Dijkstra has constructed a scheme to ensure that King Radovid stops drinking and sulking over Jaskier and embraces his role as one of the few remaining leaders who can oppose Emhyr’s army.
—Scott Meslow, Vulture, 30 Oct. 2025
Still, Brown did not spend his offseason sulking.
—Sean Gregory, TIME, 2 Oct. 2024
No one is going to get better by sulking.
—Jim Ingraham, Forbes, 30 Sep. 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for sulking
Adjective
-
After a strange courtship ritual—in which, as a favor to Liveright, Cerf accompanied the writer Theodore Dreiser to an afternoon baseball game that the latter man, bored, sulky, whisked them from around the sixth inning—Cerf took the job.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
25 Nov. 2025
-
Still, Ortega’s performance proves that sulky, baleful gravity doesn’t have to lose its strange luster over time (a third season has already been announced).—
Tom Gliatto,
PEOPLE,
3 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
Wade Hayslip came down nearly five hours later and was still pouting in his bed when his mom came in.—
Amanda Lee Myers,
USA Today,
28 Jan. 2026
-
Wasn’t blaming the losses on the players, wasn’t pouting about it.—
Pete Sampson,
New York Times,
26 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
Sad, sullen younger half-brother Zach (Joe Anders), unrecovered from a social media misstep, is acting more strangely than teenage boys usually do.—
Robert Lloyd,
Los Angeles Times,
4 June 2026
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The London producer has always taken an unusually subdued approach to club music, but her latest album—a sullen fusion of pop structures and glitchy IDM—is her most fiercely introspective yet.—
Matthew Blackwell,
Pitchfork,
13 May 2026
Verb
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Derek Hinkey’s character, the Shoshone warrior Red Feather, is almost always frowning at white settlers, looking undeniably foreboding with his face slathered in black paint and galloping on horseback into battle.—
Kathryn VanArendonk,
Vulture,
1 Dec. 2025
-
Neither smiling nor frowning, her gaze seems one of purpose.—
Jennifer Brett,
Nashville Tennessean,
16 Nov. 2025
Verb
-
Picture Andy Warhol scowling in the corner of the billiards room.—
Brittany Allen,
Literary Hub,
11 Dec. 2025
-
Now our favorite scowling friend is getting his own movie, too.—
Elisabeth Sherman,
Parents,
15 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Sulking.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sulking. Accessed 17 Jun. 2026.
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