blunt instrument
blunt instrument noun: an object lacking sharp surfaces, especially as used to cause injury.
Noun
blunt instrument (plural blunt instruments)
- An object lacking sharp surfaces, especially as used to cause injury.
- One deep wound had been inflicted upon the temple, apparently with some blunt instrument, which had penetrated the brain.1851, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, The Murdered Cousin
- It had been struck by some heavy blunt instrument, but the skull was not broken.1913, Sax Rohmer, chapter 8, in The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
- A thing, person, method, or resource which is not sufficiently precise or not sufficiently effective for its intended role or use.
- The analyst is in a sense a blunt instrument, but he can work as somebody who cares, and I think a good analyst makes the patient feel that he has value.1987, Iris Murdoch, in John Haffenden, Novelists in Interview, p. 202
- The law is a woefully blunt instrument when it comes to domestic violence of all kinds.2003 May 5, Aisha Labi, “The Runaway Bride”, in Time
blunt instrument meaning in Tamil
Examples of blunt instrument in a sentence
- [T]he United States will continue to rely on dollar depreciation as a blunt instrument to fight all its economic battles.2008 January 12, “Passing The Devalued Buck”, in Newsweek, retrieved 12 Jun 2011:
- Mubarak's Egypt has resorted to the traditional blunt instrument against dissent in a crisis — cutting off communications altogether — other countries have shown greater sophistication.2011 January 29, Scott Shane, “Spotlight Again Falls on Web Tools and Change”, in New York Times, retrieved 12 Jun 2011:
- This is a blunt instrument that without careful assessment removes connecting services and causes the loss of trains required for school or work arrival times.2022 January 12, Industry Insider, “Treasury demands cutbacks”, in RAIL, number 948, page 68:
Forms of blunt instrument
| plural | blunt instruments |
|---|
Questions about blunt instrument
- What does blunt instrument mean?
- Blunt instrument means an object lacking sharp surfaces, especially as used to cause injury.
- What is blunt instrument in Tamil?
- Blunt instrument in Tamil is மணை. See Blunt instrument meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use blunt instrument in a sentence?
- [T]he United States will continue to rely on dollar depreciation as a blunt instrument to fight all its economic battles.
- What part of speech is blunt instrument?
- Blunt instrument is a noun.
- What is the plural of blunt instrument?
- The plural of blunt instrument is blunt instruments.
Words near blunt instrument in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: blunt instrument (page history and authors); blunt instrument (Tamil Wiktionary) (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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Cite this entry: “blunt instrument.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/blunt_instrument. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.