dull

Meaning

Adj

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

Verb

1. (transitive) To render dull; to remove or blunt an edge or something that was sharp.
2. (transitive) To soften, moderate or blunt; to make dull, stupid, or sluggish; to stupefy.
3. (intransitive) To lose a sharp edge; to become dull.
4. To render dim or obscure; to sully; to tarnish.

Opposite of

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

Synonyms

blunt

stupid

boring

obtuse

slow

dim

foolish

tedious

uninteresting

sluggish

silly

insipid

flat

overcast

idiotic

gloomy

tiresome

slow-witted

dark

inactive

cloudy

☁️

pale

lifeless

dumb

lacklustre

wearisome

not sharp

dreary

dense

numb

heavy

languid

deaden

monotonous

weak

muffled

ignorant

vapid

colourless

drab

colourless

lackluster

unintelligent

faded

obscure

opaque

sullen

stagnant

tasteless

dim-witted

Translations

stumpf

émoussé

embotado

bot

matt

abstumpfen

obtus

spuntato

ennuyeux

stomp

dumm

romo

afstompen

noioso

Pronounced as (IPA)

/dʌl/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: dull

Inherited from Old English: dol

Cognate with Scots: dull

Cognate with Northern Frisian: dol

Cognate with Dutch: dol

Cognate with Low German: dul

Cognate with German: toll

Cognate with Danish: dval

Cognate with Icelandic: dulur

In summary

From Middle English dull, dul (also dyll, dill, dwal), from Old English dol (“dull, foolish, erring, heretical; foolish, silly; presumptuous”), from Proto-West Germanic *dol, from Proto-Germanic *dulaz, from earlier *dwulaz, a variant of *dwalaz (“stunned, mad, foolish, misled”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰwel-, *dʰewel- (“to dim, dull, cloud, make obscure, swirl, whirl”).
Cognate with Scots dull, doll (“slow to understand or hear, deaf, dull”), North Frisian dol (“rash, unthinking, giddy, flippant”), Dutch dol (“crazy, mad, insane”), Low German dul, dol (“mad, silly, stupid, fatuous”), German toll (“crazy, mad, wild, fantastic”), Danish dval (“foolish, absurd”), Icelandic dulur (“secretive, silent”), West-Flemish dul (angry, furious).

Sentences

The office paint was a dull , sad tan .