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Obtuse   /ɑbtˈus/   Listen
Obtuse

adjective
(compar. obtuser; superl. obtusest)
1.
Of an angle; between 90 and 180 degrees.
2.
(of a leaf shape) rounded at the apex.
3.
Lacking in insight or discernment.  Synonym: purblind.  "A purblind oligarchy that flatly refused to see that history was condemning it to the dustbin"
4.
Slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity.  Synonyms: dense, dim, dull, dumb, slow.  "Never met anyone quite so dim" , "Although dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick" , "Dumb officials make some really dumb decisions" , "He was either normally stupid or being deliberately obtuse" , "Worked with the slow students"



Related searches:
obtuse angle
obtuse leaf
obtuse triangle
obtuse-angled triangle
obtuseness


WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University


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"Obtuse" Quotes from Famous Books



... the page, and another was the idea which came to me that in the House of Martha the sisters were fed on violets. I am generally quite apt at deciphering bad writing, but never before had I shown myself so slow and obtuse at ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... experience. He had learnt from it that he might bully and abuse his human dependents with impunity. As a boy he had also bullied and abused his horses. But in his eighteenth year he had been savaged by a young horse he had maltreated, and the lesson had stuck in his mind. It was a simple, obtuse mind, but it had formed the theory that he got more out of human beings, more deference and service, by bullying them and more out of horses by treating them kindly. Besides, he ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... trivialities; she simply drops her hand impressively, letting it fall over the arm of her chair as dewdrops hang on the cup of a flower, and all is said—she has pronounced judgment beyond appeal, to the apprehension of the most obtuse. She knows how to listen to you; she gives you the opportunity of shining, and—I ask ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... performance some more; this they did for a time, and then stole off again, or slept in their seats, and the Ncomi were highly disgusted at those brutes of Fans, whom they regarded, they said in their way, as Philistines of an utterly obtuse and ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the figures of Rupert and Teuta sank; they were taking their places on the aeroplane. An instant after, like a great golden bird, it seemed to shoot out into the air, and then, dipping its head, dropped downward at an obtuse angle. We could see the King and Queen from time waist upwards—the King in Blue Mountain dress of green; the Queen, wrapped in her white Shroud, holding her baby on her breast. When far out from the mountain-top and over the Blue Mouth, the wings and tail of the great ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker


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