blunt
UK/blʌnt/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Northern England/blʊnt/
blunt adjective: having a thick edge or point; not sharp.
Adjective
blunt (comparative blunter, superlative bluntest)
- Having a thick edge or point; not sharp.
- The murderous knife was dull and blunt.c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- The dinghy was trailing astern at the end of its painter, and Merrion looked at it as he passed. He saw that it was a battered-looking affair of the prahm type, with a blunt snout, and like the parent ship, had recently been painted a vivid green.1944, Miles Burton, The Three Corpse Trick, chapter 5
- Dull in understanding; slow of discernment; opposed to acute.
- His wits are not so blunt.1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- Abrupt in address; plain; unceremonious; wanting in the forms of civility; rough in manners or speech.
- I was taken aback by the blunt admission that he had never liked my company.
- a plain, blunt man1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- Hard to impress or penetrate.
- December 30, 1736, Alexander Pope, letter to Jonathan Swift
I find my heart hardened and blunt to new impressions.
- December 30, 1736, Alexander Pope, letter to Jonathan Swift
- Slow or deficient in feeling: insensitive.
Noun
blunt (countable and uncountable, plural blunts)
- A fencer's practice foil with a soft tip.
- A short needle with a strong point.
- A marijuana cigar.
- […] to make his point, lead rapper B-Real fired up a blunt in front of the cameras and several hundred thousand people and announced, “I'm taking a hit for every one of y'all!”2004, Martin Torgoff, “The Temple of Accumulated Error”, in Can’t Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age, 1945–2000, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 461
- Money.
- Down he goes to the Commons, to see the lawyer and draw the blunt[…]1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, chapter 10, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- ackers, bees and honey, bones, brass, bread, bread and honey, Bugs Bunny, cake, cheddar, cheese
- A playboating move resembling a cartwheel performed on a wave.
Verb
blunt (third-person singular simple present blunts, present participle blunting, simple past and past participle blunted)
- To dull the edge or point of, by making it thicker; to make blunt.
- To repress or weaken; to impair the force, keenness, or susceptibility, of
- It blunted my appetite.
- My feeling towards her have been blunted.
Proper noun capitalized: Blunt
Blunt (countable and uncountable, plural Blunts)
- A surname transferred from the nickname.
- A minor city in Hughes County, South Dakota, United States.
blunt meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
blunt in Hindi
- having a thick edge or point, not sharp
- कुंद kund
- abrupt in address; plain; unceremonious
- मुँहफट mũhphaṭ
blunt in Tamil
- having a thick edge or point, not sharp
- மழுங்கிய maḻuṅkiya, மொக்கையான mokkaiyāṉa
- dull in understanding; slow of discernment
- மந்தம் mantam
- abrupt in address; plain; unceremonious
- அப்பட்டம் appaṭṭam, அப்பட்டமான appaṭṭamāṉa
- cigar filled with marijuana
- சுருட்டு curuṭṭu
blunt in Urdu
- blunt, dull, not sharp
- کند kund
blunt in Bengali
- কুণ্ড, অনুচ্ছেদ
More languagesFewer languages
- blunt in Telugu
- మొక్క mokka, కట్టెవిరుపుమాట kaṭṭevirupumāṭa, మొద్దు moddu
- blunt in Malayalam
- മട maṭa
- blunt in Kannada
- ಮೊಂಡ moṇḍa, ಮೊಂಡು moṇḍu
- blunt in Gujarati
- આખાબોલું ākhābōlũ
- blunt in Sanskrit
- कुण्ठ kuṇṭha
- blunt in Sinhala
- මොට moṭa
- blunt in Nepali
- बोधो bodho
- blunt in Arabic
- كَلِيل kalīl
- blunt in Malay
- tumpul
- blunt in Indonesian
- tumpul, majal
- blunt in Persian
- کند kond
- blunt in Thai
- ทู่ tûu, ทื่อ tʉ̂ʉ
- blunt in Vietnamese
- cùn
- blunt in Myanmar
- တုံး tum:
Examples of blunt in a sentence
- It was blunt and grey, the nose springing thick and flat from high on the frontal bone of the forehead, whilst his eyes were narrow slits of dark in a tight bandage of tissue. […].1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 17, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
- That settled the Merseysiders for a short while but it did not blunt the home side's spirit.2011 January 12, Saj Chowdhury, “Liverpool 2 - 1 Liverpool”, in BBC:
- I'm not saying that thousands of folk are not being inconvenienced, because they most certainly are, but the impact of strikes on government has been blunted.2022 August 24, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Rail strikes deadlock”, in RAIL, number 964, page 3:
Synonyms of blunt
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of blunt
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | blunter |
| superlative | bluntest |
| Noun | |
| plural | blunts |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | blunts |
| present participle | blunting |
| past participle | blunted |
| past | blunted |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Blunts |
Origin of blunt
From Middle English blunt, blont, from Old English *blunt, probably of North Germanic origin, possibly related to Old Norse blunda (“to shut eyes, to doze”), related to blind (> Icelandic blunda, Swedish blunda, Danish blunde). Compare the Scandinavian-German munitons term blind (“non-live, dummy”), opposite of skarp (“live”, literally, “sharp”): Swedish and Danish blind patron (“dummy round”), Danish blindt skud, German blinder schuss (“dummy shot”), blinde granate (“dummy grenade”).
From Middle English blunten, blonten, from the adjective (see above).
Two possible origins: * From Anglo-Norman blunt (“blond”), a nickname for someone with fair hair or a light complexion. * From Middle English blunt (“dull, stupid”), a nickname for a stupid person.
Words formed from blunt
Phrases with blunt
Words that rhyme with blunt
Questions about blunt
- What does blunt mean?
- Blunt means having a thick edge or point; not sharp.
- What is blunt in Hindi?
- Blunt in Hindi is कुंद (kund), मुँहफट (mũhphaṭ). See Blunt meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use blunt in a sentence?
- It was blunt and grey, the nose springing thick and flat from high on the frontal bone of the forehead, whilst his eyes were narrow slits of dark in a tight bandage of tissue. […].
- What part of speech is blunt?
- Blunt can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce blunt?
- Blunt is pronounced /blʌnt/ (UK).
Words near blunt in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: blunt (page history and authors); Blunt (page history and authors); کند (Urdu) (page history and authors); blunt (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); కట్టెవిరుపుమాట (Telugu) (page history and authors); മട (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಮೊಂಡ (Kannada) (page history and authors); આખાબોલું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); कुण्ठ (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); මොට (Sinhala) (page history and authors); बोधो (Nepali) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-blunt.ogg.
Cite this entry: “blunt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/blunt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.