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dour (adj.)

mid-14c., "severe" (of grief); late 14c., of men, "bold, stern, fierce," a word from Scottish and northern England dialect, probably directly from Latin durus "hard," from PIE *dru-ro-, suffixed variant form of root *deru- "be firm, solid, steadfast." Sense of "gloomy, sullen" is late 15c. Related: Dourness.

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Definitions of dour from WordNet

dour (adj.)
stubbornly unyielding; "a mind not gifted to discover truth but tenacious to hold it"- T.S.Eliot;
dour determination
dour (adj.)
harshly uninviting or formidable in manner or appearance; "undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw"- J.M.Barrie;
a dour, self-sacrificing life
Synonyms: forbidding / grim
From wordnet.princeton.edu