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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



... Last night they were shunting and jigging us about all night between Rouen and Sotteville. Slow bumping over hundreds of points is much worse to sleep in than fast travelling. In either case you wake whenever you pull up or start off. But we shall miss the train when we get into a dull hotel bedroom or a billet, or perhaps a tent. My month at Le Mans in Madame's beautiful French bed was the one ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... a realist in the sense that he keeps close to reality, truth, and nature. But in the pursuit of photographic faithfulness to life, he never allows himself to be tedious and dull, as some of the best representatives of the school think it incumbent upon them to be. His descriptions are never overburdened with wearisome details; his action is rapid; the events are never to be foreseen a hundred pages beforehand; he keeps his readers ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... terrifying thing happened. The earth under his feet began to shake. At first he could not believe it, but when he steadied himself and watched closely, the oscillating motion was undoubtedly there. It was accompanied, too, by a rumble, dull and low, but which steadily grew louder. It seemed to Dick that the round pit was the ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... and his plants had been everything to him. Now he began to surround himself with an infinity of feminine belongings, and to promise himself an infinity of feminine blessings, wondering much that he should have been content to pass so long a portion of his life in the dull seclusion which he had endured. He was not by nature an impatient man; but now he became impatient, longing for the fruition of his new idea of happiness,—longing to have that as his own which he certainly loved beyond all ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... knowledge of the circumstances, justify my conduct in my own eyes; but in what light will it appear to my brother! For, can it be denied that the insolence of these foreign teachers waxes daily more audacious? They have desecrated our sanctuaries, unsettled the dull minds of the people, and conjured up amongst them a spirit of delusion. Impure spirits have mingled among the insurgents, horrible deeds have been perpetrated, which to think of makes one shudder, and of these a circumstantial account must be transmitted ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe


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