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Dull   /dəl/   Listen
adjective
Dull  adj.  (compar. duller; superl. dullest)  
1.
Slow of understanding; wanting readiness of apprehension; stupid; doltish; blockish. "Dull at classical learning." "She is not bred so dull but she can learn."
2.
Slow in action; sluggish; unready; awkward. "This people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing." "O, help my weak wit and sharpen my dull tongue."
3.
Insensible; unfeeling. "Think me not So dull a devil to forget the loss Of such a matchless wife."
4.
Not keen in edge or point; lacking sharpness; blunt. "Thy scythe is dull."
5.
Not bright or clear to the eye; wanting in liveliness of color or luster; not vivid; obscure; dim; as, a dull fire or lamp; a dull red or yellow; a dull mirror.
6.
Heavy; gross; cloggy; insensible; spiritless; lifeless; inert. "The dull earth." "As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so changes of study a dull brain."
7.
Furnishing little delight, spirit, or variety; uninteresting; tedious; cheerless; gloomy; melancholy; depressing; as, a dull story or sermon; a dull occupation or period; hence, cloudy; overcast; as, a dull day. "Along life's dullest, dreariest walk."
Synonyms: Lifeless; inanimate; dead; stupid; doltish; heavy; sluggish; sleepy; drowsy; gross; cheerless; tedious; irksome; dismal; dreary; clouded; tarnished; obtuse. See Lifeless.


verb
Dull  v. t.  (past & past part. duller; pres. part. dulling)  
1.
To deprive of sharpness of edge or point. "This... dulled their swords." "Borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry."
2.
To make dull, stupid, or sluggish; to stupefy, as the senses, the feelings, the perceptions, and the like. "Those (drugs) she has Will stupefy and dull the sense a while." "Use and custom have so dulled our eyes."
3.
To render dim or obscure; to sully; to tarnish. "Dulls the mirror."
4.
To deprive of liveliness or activity; to render heavy; to make inert; to depress; to weary; to sadden. "Attention of mind... wasted or dulled through continuance."


Dull  v. i.  To become dull or stupid.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Dull" Quotes from Famous Books



... dull, a scribal pen Dead legends wrote, half-known, and feared: In lettered lands to poet men Romance, who lives ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... fire was dying down from a flame to a dull red glow, and a rush of wind against the kitchen window was accompanied by the light pattering of ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... because the animal life is the lowest and rudest part of his being and that which he shares with inferior creatures, to call any individual man an animal is to imply that the animal nature has undue supremacy, and so is deep condemnation or utter insult. The brute is the animal viewed as dull to all finer feeling; the beast is looked upon as a being of appetites. To call a man a brute is to imply that he is unfeeling and cruel; to call him a beast is to indicate that he is vilely sensual. We speak ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... surely deem May light these hearts of ours on darksome days, When loneliness hath power, and no kind beam Lightens about our feet the perilous ways? For of Eternity This present hour is all we call our own, And Memory's edge is dull'd, even as it brings The sunny swathes of unforgotten springs, And sweeps them to our feet like grass ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Style receives its beauty from the thought it expresses; but with sham-thinkers the thoughts are supposed to be fine because of the style. Style is nothing but the mere silhouette of thought; and an obscure or bad style means a dull or confused brain. ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer


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