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Dull   /dəl/   Listen
Dull

adjective
(compar. duller; superl. dullest)
1.
Lacking in liveliness or animation.  "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"
2.
Emitting or reflecting very little light.  "Dull silver badly in need of a polish" , "A dull sky"
3.
Being or made softer or less loud or clear.  Synonyms: muffled, muted, softened.  "Muffled drums" , "The muffled noises of the street" , "Muted trumpets"
4.
So lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness.  Synonyms: boring, deadening, ho-hum, irksome, slow, tedious, tiresome, wearisome.  "The deadening effect of some routine tasks" , "A dull play" , "His competent but dull performance" , "A ho-hum speaker who couldn't capture their attention" , "What an irksome task the writing of long letters is" , "Tedious days on the train" , "The tiresome chirping of a cricket" , "Other people's dreams are dreadfully wearisome"
5.
(of color) very low in saturation; highly diluted.
6.
Not keenly felt.  "Dull pain"
7.
Slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity.  Synonyms: dense, dim, dumb, obtuse, 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"
8.
(of business) not active or brisk.  Synonyms: slow, sluggish.  "A sluggish market"
9.
Not having a sharp edge or point.
10.
Blunted in responsiveness or sensibility.  "So exhausted she was dull to what went on about her"
11.
Not clear and resonant; sounding as if striking with or against something relatively soft.  Synonym: thudding.  "Thudding bullets"
12.
Darkened with overcast.  Synonym: leaden.  "A dull sky" , "The sky was leaden and thick"
verb
(past & past part. duller; pres. part. dulling)
1.
Make dull in appearance.
2.
Become dull or lusterless in appearance; lose shine or brightness.
3.
Deaden (a sound or noise), especially by wrapping.  Synonyms: damp, dampen, muffle, mute, tone down.
4.
Make numb or insensitive.  Synonyms: benumb, blunt, numb.
5.
Make dull or blunt.  Synonym: blunt.
6.
Become less interesting or attractive.  Synonym: pall.
7.
Make less lively or vigorous.



Related searches:
dull-purple
dull-white
dullard
dulled
dullness


WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University


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"Dull" Quotes from Famous Books



... Penang. The pipe "up anchor" this morning was hailed with delight. Anything to change the dull monotony of the last few weeks. We started with an overcast and rainy sky, and by the next morning had reached Malacca, a small British settlement, essentially Malay, more a village than a town. It lies very low and close to the water's edge, the houses of the natives being ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... man to love a woman as I do,' he went on—'I did not seek to love her, it came upon me before I was aware—before I had ever thought about it at all, I loved her better than all the world beside. All my life, before I knew her, seems a dull blank. I neither know nor care for what I did before then. And now there are just two lives before me. Either I have her, or I have not. That is all: but that is everything. And what can I do to make her have me? ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... my wild endeavour To leave the dull unmoving strand, To hail thee, Sea; to leave thee never, And o'er thy foam to guide for ever My ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... the scoop, and looked at it as if he had never seen such a thing before; he moved about heavily, hardly knowing what he did, but conscious all the while of his own great misery. His limbs seemed half frozen, and a dull pain gathered about his head and in his breast—in fact, everywhere ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... to-night in the pretty detached cottages he passed, and he thought with growing wrath of the trivial errand on which he had been sent. "In happy homes he saw the light," but none of the high purpose of the youth of "Excelsior" fame stirred his heart—rather a dull sense of failure from all high things. What did his life amount to anyway, that he should count one thing more trivial than another? He loved his wife and children dearly, but he remembered a time when his ambition had not thought of being satisfied with the daily grind for a living and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various


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