sultry

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: sul=try

CIDE DICTIONARY

sultry, a. [From Sweltry.].

•  Very hot, burning, and oppressive; as, Libya's sultry deserts.  [1913 Webster]

  "Such as, born beneath the burning sky
  And sultry sun, betwixt the tropics lie."  [1913 Webster]
•  Very hot and humid, or hot, close, stagnant, and oppressive, as air.  [1913 Webster]

  "When in the sultry glebe I faint,
  Or on the thirsty mountain plant."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

sultry, adj. (sultrier, sultriest)
1 (of the atmosphere or the weather) hot or oppressive; close.
2 (of a person, character, etc.) passionate; sensual.

Derivative

sultrily adv. sultriness n.

Etymology

obs. sulter SWELTER

THESAURUS

sultry

Fescennine, Rabelaisian, airless, baking, bawdy, blue, breathless, broiling, burning, close, damp, dirty, erotic, filthy, foul, foul-mouthed, foul-spoken, foul-tongued, fulsome, hot, humid, impure, ithyphallic, lewd, livid, lurid, lustful, lusty, moist, mucky, muggy, nasty, obscene, offensive, oppressive, passionate, pornographic, provocative, raunchy, red-hot, ribald, salacious, scorching, scurrile, scurrilous, seductive, sensationalistic, sensual, sexy, sizzling, smoking-room, smothering, smudgy, smutty, soggy, steaming, steamy, sticky, stifling, stuffy, suffocating, sweltering, sweltry, tabloid, torrid, unchaste, unclean, unprintable, unrepeatable, vile, voluptuous

ROGET THESAURUS

sultry

Moisture

N moisture, moistness, humidity, humectation, madefaction, dew, serein, marsh, hygrometry, hygrometer, moist, damp, watery, madid, roric, undried, humid, sultry, wet, dank, luggy, dewy, roral, rorid, roscid, juicy, wringing wet, soaking wet, wet through to the skin, saturated, swashy, soggy, dabbled, reeking, dripping, soaking, soft, sodden, sloppy, muddy, swampy, irriguous.

Heat

N heat, caloric, temperature, warmth, fervor, calidity, incalescence, incandescence, glow, flush, fever, hectic, phlogiston, fire, spark, scintillation, flash, flame, blaze, bonfire, firework, pyrotechnics, pyrotechny, wildfire, sheet of fire, lambent flame, devouring element, adiathermancy, recalescence, summer, dog days, canicular days, baking, heat, white heat, tropical heat, Afric heat, Bengal heat, summer heat, blood heat, sirocco, simoom, broiling sun, insolation, warming, sun, pyrology, thermology, thermotics, thermodynamics, thermometer, calorie, gram-calorie, small calorie, kilocalorie, kilogram calorie, large calorie, British Thermal Unit, B, T, U, therm, quad, degrees Kelvin, kelvins, degrees centigrade, degrees Celsius, degrees Fahrenheit, hot, warm, mild, genial, tepid, lukewarm, unfrozen, thermal, thermic, calorific, fervent, fervid, ardent, aglow, sunny, torrid, tropical, estival, canicular, steamy, close, sultry, stifling, stuffy, suffocating, oppressive, reeking, baking, red hot, white hot, smoking hot, burning, hot, piping hot, like a furnace, like an oven, burning, hot as fire, hot as pepper, hot enough to roast an ox, hot enough to boil an egg, fiery, incandescent, incalescent, candent, ebullient, glowing, smoking, live, on fire, dazzling, in flames, blazing, in a blaze, alight, afire, ablaze, unquenched, unextinguished, smoldering, in a heat, in a glow, in a fever, in a perspiration, in a sweat, sudorific, sweltering, sweltered, blood hot, blood warm, warm as a toast, warm as wool, volcanic, plutonic, igneous, isothermal, isothermic, isotheral, not a breath of air, whirlwinds of tempestuous fire.