• (RP) IPA: /ˈsʌltɹi/
• (GA) IPA: /ˈsʌltɹi/, /ˈsəl-/

sultry (comparative sultrier, superlative sultriest)

1. (weather) Hot and humid. [from late 16th c.]
   • 1812, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: Printed for John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas Davison, […], OCLC 22697011 ↗, canto II, stanza XLIX, page 85 ↗:

     Here in the sultriest season let him rest, / Fresh is the green beneath those aged trees; / Here winds of gentlest wing will fan his breast, / From heaven itself he may inhale the breeze: {{...}

   • 1832, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Tales of My Landlord, Fourth and Last Series. [...] In Four Volumes, volume II (Count Robert of Paris), Edinburgh: Printed [by Ballantyne and Company] for Robert Cadell; London: Whittaker and Co., OCLC 81177709 ↗, page 305 ↗:

     The detachment of Tancred, fifty spears and their armed retinue, which amounted fully to five hundred men, after having taken a short and hasty refreshment, were in arms and mounted before the sultry hour of noon.

   • 1859 November 26 – 1860 August 25​, [William] Wilkie Collins, “The Narrative of Walter Hartwright, of Clement’s Inn, London”, in The Woman in White. A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, Franklin Square, published 1860, OCLC 558180353 ↗, part I, section III, page 10 ↗, column 1:

     The heat had been painfully oppressive all day; and it was now a close and sultry night.

   • 1914 January, Zane Grey, “The Mountain Trail”, in The Light of Western Stars: A Romance, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, OCLC 2804952 ↗, page 225 ↗:

     The storm-center gathered slowly around the peaks; low rumble and bowl of thunder increased in frequence; slowly the light shaded as smoky clouds rolled up; the air grew sultrier, and the exasperating breeze puffed a few times and then failed.

2. (weather) Very hot and dry#Adjective|dry; torrid.
   • 1908, Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts: A Drama of the Napoleonic Wars, in Three Parts, Nineteen Acts, & One Hundred and Thirty Scenes, part third, London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, St. Martin’s Street, OCLC 81267352 ↗, Act I, scene iii, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x001770632;view=1up;seq=37 page 15]:

     The battlefield—an undulating, parched, and dusty expanse—is lying under the sultry sun of a July afternoon.

3. (figuratively) Sexually enthralling#Adjective|enthralling.

• (hot and humid) close, muggy

• French: étouffant
• German: schwül
• Portuguese: mormacento
• Russian: зно́йный
• Spanish: bochornoso, bochornosa

• French: torride
• German: drückend
• Portuguese: tórrido
• Russian: зно́йный
• Spanish: tórrido

• French: torride
• Portuguese: tórrido
• Russian: похотли́вый
• Spanish: caliente