sultry

Etymology

It is formed from English sulter (“to swelter”) + -y,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} the obsolete verb, recorded from 1581 to 1695.^[2][8] The OED takes sulter as perhaps standing for a form cognate with swalter and swelter,^[2] and Hoad likewise thinks it probably related to swelter;^[4] Barnhart, Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the American Heritage Dictionary call it an alteration of swelter,^[8][5][6] and Weekley an apparently dialectal form of it.^[9] Etymonline sees the adjective as ultimately swelter with the suffix, either through the verb sulter or as a contraction of sweltry,^[10] which the OED records from 1575;^[2] Skeat too held sweltry to be the older form and sultry short for it.^[11] According to Skeat, swelter is itself a frequentative of swelten (“to faint, die”), from Old English sweltan (“to die”).^[11] Johnson reported Skinner's guess that the word was corrupted from “sulphury” or sweltry.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of the weather or the air, oppressively hot and moist: 1594, in Thomas Kyd's translation of Robert Garnier's Cornelia.^[2][8][5]

Semantic evolution

From the weather the word passed to places and seasons with such weather (1620) and, in poetry, to the sun or anything giving out oppressive heat (1697, in Dryden's Virgil).^[2] Milton used it figuratively, of the heat of toil in Lycidas (1638) and of the heat of temper or passion, hot with anger or lust, in Samson Agonistes (1671);^[2][8] Etymonline dates the sense "hot with lust" to 1704.^[10] Johnson (1755) defined it as "hot without ventilation; hot and close; hot and cloudy", quoting Hamlet.^[12] In the late 19th century it took on colloquial senses: "hot" or lively (1880, in Mark Twain), "spicy" or smutty (1887, in Kipling) and, of language, lurid (1891).^[2][10] Of a woman, sensual and arousing desire, it is recorded from 1940, in Time, and was originally American.^[2][10] Weekley noted that the figurative senses were often playful.^[9] Bird names used it for a reddish tinge from 1783,^[2] and Francis Thompson used a verb sultry, to make hot, in 1897.^[2]

Timeline

• 1594 – of the weather, oppressively hot and moist.^[2][8][5]
• 1620 – of places and seasons, marked by such weather.^[2]
• 1638 – figuratively, hot with toil.^[2]
• 1671 – hot with temper or passion, with anger or lust.^[2][8] Etymonline dates the sense "hot with lust" to 1704.^[10]
• 1697 – poetic, of the sun, giving out oppressive heat.^[2]
• 1880 – colloquial, hot, lively.^[2]
• 1887 – spicy, smutty.^[2][10]
• 1891 – of language, lurid.^[2]
• 1940 – of a woman, sensual, arousing desire.^[2][10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of weather or climate, oppressively hot and humid; sweltering: It was a sultry evening, without a breath of wind.^{[13][5][2][14]}
2. Giving out oppressive heat; burning hot, torrid: under a sultry tropical sun.^[5][13][2]
3. Suggesting or arousing sexual desire; sensual or passionate: a sultry singing voice.^{[5][13][14][2]}
4. Hot with passion or anger.^[5][2]

Word family

• sultrily
• sultriness
• unsultry

Related words

• swelter
• sweltry
• sweltering

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press