Word.ws English Dictionary

dim-bulb

UK/ˈdɪm ˌbʌlb/

dim-bulb adjective: slow-witted, stupid.

Adjective

dim-bulb (not comparable)

  1. Slow-witted, stupid.
    • In Snow White [and the Seven Dwarfs], [Walt] Disney and his staff met the challenge of creating believable characters. Each of the seven dwarfs, from sober-sided Doc to dim-bulb Dopey, had a distinct personality.1966 December 23, “Walt Disney: Images of Innocence [obituary]”, in Time, archived from the original on 30 Apr 2009
    • Up to now the guy's just a dim-bulb character who likes to dress up in a sailor suit and spoon creme broolay out of a bowl for a living.1990, Joe Bob Briggs [pseudonym; John Irving Bloom], The Cosmic Wisdom of Joe Bob Briggs, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →ISBN, page 263

Examples of dim-bulb in a sentence

  • Well, long ago, a man named Aesop met a whole bunch of bossy, silly, funny, annoying, dim-bulb people, and he wanted to do something about it.2007, Chris Jennings Dixon, editor, Lesson Plans for Teaching Writing, Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English, →ISBN, page 2:
  • And when the film itself proceeds so straightforwardly, and you know that even [Jennifer Love] Hewitt’s dim-bulb boyfriend (Freddie Prinze Jr.) will survive, much of the fun is lost.2017 October 27, Alex McLevy, “Making a Killing: The Brief Life and Bloody Death of the Post-Scream Slasher Revival”, in The A.V. Club...

Synonyms of dim-bulb

Antonyms

Origin of dim-bulb

Probably a reference to the use of a light bulb in cartoons and comics to indicate that a person has had a bright idea.

Questions about dim-bulb

What does dim-bulb mean?
Dim-bulb means slow-witted, stupid.
How do you use dim-bulb in a sentence?
Well, long ago, a man named Aesop met a whole bunch of bossy, silly, funny, annoying, dim-bulb people, and he wanted to do something about it.
What part of speech is dim-bulb?
Dim-bulb is an adjective.
How do you pronounce dim-bulb?
Dim-bulb is pronounced /ˈdɪm ˌbʌlb/ (UK).

Words near dim-bulb in the dictionary

  1. dim sim
  2. dim sims
  3. dim sum
  4. dim sum bond
  5. dim sum bonds
  6. dim-bulb
  7. dim-headed
  8. dim-lit
  9. dim-sighted
  10. dim-witted
  11. dim-wittedly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dim-bulb (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-au-dim-bulb.ogg.

Cite this entry: “dim-bulb.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dim-bulb. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.