dull

Verb

Verb Forms: dulled, dulling, dulls

• To make something less sharp, bright, or intense; to blunt.
• make dull in appearance
  • "Age had dulled the surface"
• become dull or lusterless in appearance; lose shine or brightness
  • "the varnished table top dulled with time"
• deaden (a sound or noise), especially by wrapping
• make numb or insensitive
• make dull or blunt
  • "Too much cutting dulls the knife's edge"
• become less interesting or attractive
• make less lively or vigorous
  • "Middle age dulled her appetite for travel"
• To render dull; to remove or blunt an edge or something that was sharp.
• To soften, moderate or blunt; to make dull, stupid, or sluggish; to stupefy.
• To lose a sharp edge; to become dull.
• To render dim or obscure; to sully; to tarnish.

Adjective

• Lacking sharpness, brightness, or intensity; mentally slow.
• lacking in liveliness or animation
  • "he was so dull at parties"
  • "a dull political campaign"
  • "a large dull impassive man"
  • "dull days with nothing to do"
  • "how dull and dreary the world is"
  • "fell back into one of her dull moods"
• emitting or reflecting very little light
  • "a dull glow"
  • "dull silver badly in need of a polish"
  • "a dull sky"
• not keenly felt
  • "a dull throbbing"
  • "dull pain"
• not having a sharp edge or point
  • "the knife was too dull to be of any use"

Adjective Satellite

• being or made softer or less loud or clear
  • "the dull boom of distant breaking waves"
• so lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness; ; ; ; ; ; - Edmund Burke; ; - Mark Twain
  • "a dull play"
  • "his competent but dull performance"
• (of color) very low in saturation; highly diluted
  • "dull greens and blues"
• slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity; ; ; - Thackeray
  • "although dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick"
• (of business) not active or brisk
  • "business is dull (or slow)"
• blunted in responsiveness or sensibility; ; - Willa Cather
  • "a dull gaze"
  • "so exhausted she was dull to what went on about her"
• not clear and resonant; sounding as if striking with or against something relatively soft
  • "the dull thud"
• darkened with overcast
  • "a dull sky"

Adj

• Lacking the ability to cut easily; not sharp.
• Boring; not exciting or interesting.
• Not shiny; having a matte finish or no particular luster or brightness.
• Not bright or intelligent; stupid; having slow understanding.
• Sluggish, listless.
• Bored, depressed, down.
• Cloudy, overcast.
• Insensible; unfeeling.
• Heavy; lifeless; inert.
• Not intense; felt indistinctly or only slightly.
• Not clear, muffled. (of a noise or sound)

Examples

• A board full of only common letters can make a game feel quite dull.
• A razor will dull with use.
• All these knives are dull.
• Choose a dull finish to hide fingerprints.
• He drinks to dull the pain.
• He sat through the dull lecture and barely stayed awake.
• I felt dull all day.
• It's a dull day.
• Losing repeatedly can dull a player’s enthusiasm for Words With Friends.
• Pressing on the bruise produces a dull pain.
• Years of misuse have dulled the tools.

Synonyms

benumb, blunt, boring, damp, dampen, deadening, dense, dim, dumb, ho-hum, irksome, leaden, muffle, muffled, mute, muted, numb, obtuse, pall, slow, sluggish, softened, tedious, thudding, tiresome, tone down, wearisome, Boeotian, abeyant, addlebrained, addlepated, airheaded, alexithymic, apathistical, ass-brained, at rest, atrabiliary, atrabilious, banal, beat, bee-brained, beef-witted, beefheaded, beetle-headed, birdbrained, blah, bland, blitheless, blockheaded, blue, bone-idle, boneheaded, boofheaded, brainless, bubbleheaded, buffle-headed, bullet-headed, bummed out, cerebrally challenged, cessant, chapfallen, cheerless, childish, chopfallen, chowderheaded, chuckleheaded, clinical, cold, cold-blooded, cold-hearted, colourless, crackbrained, crawling, creeping, crestfallen, cretinous, cut up, dead inside, dejected, dented, depressed, despondent, dim-bulb, dim-headed, dim-witted, dingy, disconsolate, disgruntled, disheartened, dismal, dispassionate, doleful, dolesome, doltish, dopey, dormant, down, down in the dumps, down in the mouth, downcast, downhearted, downsome, dozy, drab, dreich, drowsy, dull, dull as dishwater, dull-headed, dull-minded, dull-witted, dullen, dumb as a bag of hammers, dumb as a box of rocks, dumb as a doorknob, dumb as a post, dumb as a sack of hammers, dumb as an ox, dumb as dirt, dumber than a box of rocks, dumber than a rock, dunderheaded, elegiac, elegious, emotionless, empty-headed, faint, fallow, fatheaded, feeble-minded, flat, flea-brained, foolish, forlorn, fuckwitted, fuzzy-headed, fuzzy-minded, gastropodous, glacial, gloomy, glum, grief-stricken, grieving, half-brained, half-witted, hammer-headed, heartsick, heartsore, heavy-footed, heavy-hearted, humdrum, idiotic, idle, imbecilic, immobile, immovable, impassible, impassive, inactive, inane, inanimate, inching, inconsolable, indolent, inert, infelicitous, insensible, insipid, intellectually challenged, jawfallen, joyless, knuckleheaded, labored, lachrymose, lackadaisical, lackluster, lame, lamebrained, lamentful, languid, latent, lazy, lead-footed, lethargic, lifeless, lither, longsome, low, low-speed, low-spirited, lowbrow, lugubrious, lumbering, lumpish, lunkheaded, matte, melancholic, melancholy, mentally challenged, mentally retarded, mindless, miserable, monosynaptic, monotonous, moody, mopey, moronic, morose, motionless, mournful, muddy, mundane, muttonheaded, nitwitted, no fun at parties, nonactive, nonemotional, nonfeeling, nonpassionate, nonsentimental, not the sharpest crayon in the box, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, not the sharpest tool in the shed, numbskulled, oafish, passionate, peabrained, pedantic, pedestrian, plain, plaintive, plodding, pokey, ponderous, pratty, prosaic, prosy, pudding-headed, puerile, purblind, quarter-witted, querulous, quiescent, retarded, rockheaded, sad, saddened, saturnine, sedent, sedentary, sharp as a bowling ball, shattered, sheep-headed, shit-for-brains, silent, simple, slothful, slothlike, slow as Christmas, slow as a snail, slow as molasses, slow as molasses in January, slow-witted, slowfooted, smooth-brained, snoozeworthy, sober, solemn, sombre, soporific, sorrow-ridden, sorrowful, sorrowsome, spiritless, stately, static, stationary, steady, still, stock-still, stodgy, stolid, straightforward, stupid, subglacial, sullen, suspended, swear, tardigrade, testudineous, thick, thick as a brick, thick as a plank, thick as a whale omelette, thick as champ, thick as mince, thick as pig shit, thick as two short planks, thick-skulled, thickheaded, thickwitted, threnetic, threnetical, torpid, triste, tristful, unactive, unapprehensive, unbusy, uncheerful, uncheery, unclever, uncolorful, unconsolable, uncool, unemotional, unemployed, unfeeling, unhappy, unholiday, unintelligent, uninteresting, unlively, unmovable, unmoved, unmoving, unoccupied, unpassionate, unsentimental, unsmart, unspeedy, vacant, vacuous, vanilla, vapid, wan, weaksauce, wistful, witless, woe, woebegone, woeful, wooden, wooden-headed, wool-headed, woolly-headed, woolly-minded, work-shy, wretched

Antonyms

bright, lively, sharp, sharpen, brainless, dumb, foolish, idiotic, imbecile, insensible, lowbrow, mindless, stupid, unintelligent, witless

Related Words

Dollard, bedole

Anagrams of dull