Word.ws English Dictionary

dull

/dʌl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern England/dʊl/

dull adjective: lacking the ability to cut easily; not sharp.

Adjective

dull (comparative duller, superlative dullest)

  1. Lacking the ability to cut easily; not sharp.
    • All these knives are dull.
    Synonyms:
    blunt
    Antonyms:
    sharp
  2. Boring; not exciting or interesting.
    • He sat through the dull lecture and barely stayed awake.
    • "You are very dull this morning, Sheriff," said the youngest daughter of the house, who, being the baby and pretty, had grown pettishly privileged in speech.1895, S. R. Crockett, A Cry Across the Black Water
  3. Not shiny; having a matte finish or no particular luster or brightness.
    • Choose a dull finish to hide fingerprints.
    • a dull fire or lamp; a dull red or yellow; a dull mirror
    Antonyms:
    bright
  4. Not bright or intelligent; stupid; having slow understanding.
    • She is not bred so dull but she can learn.c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • dull at classical learning1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 5, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC
  5. Sluggish, listless.
    • This people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 13:xiii
    • O, help my weak wit and sharpen my dull tongue.1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  6. Bored, depressed, down.
    • I felt dull all day.
  7. Cloudy, overcast.
    • It's a dull day.
  8. Insensible; unfeeling.
    • Think me not / So dull a devil to forget the loss / Of such a matchless wife.1616–1619 (first performance), John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Nathan Field, “The Knight of Malta”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […]...
  9. Heavy; lifeless; inert.
    • the dull earthc. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • c. 1857', Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Table-Talk
      As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so changes of study a dull brain.
  10. Not intense; felt indistinctly or only slightly.
    • Pressing on the bruise produces a dull pain.
  11. Not clear, muffled. (of a noise or sound)

Verb (1)

dull (third-person singular simple present dulls, present participle dulling, simple past and past participle dulled)

  1. (transitive) To render dull; to remove or blunt an edge or something that was sharp.
    • Years of misuse have dulled the tools.
    • This […] dulled their swords.a. 1627 (date written), Francis [Bacon], “Considerations Touching a Warre with Spaine. […]”, in William Rawley, editor, Certaine Miscellany Works of the Right Honourable Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount...
  2. (transitive) To soften, moderate or blunt; to make dull, stupid, or sluggish; to stupefy.
    • He drinks to dull the pain.
    • Those [drugs] she has / Will stupefy and dull the sense a while.1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
  3. (intransitive) To lose a sharp edge; to become dull.
    • A razor will dull with use.
  4. To render dim or obscure; to sully; to tarnish.

Noun

dull (plural dulls)

  1. (Ireland, Southern US, archaic, obsolete) A noose of string, metal wire, or hair used to snare an animal, especially a fish.
    • Play fair, boys. No dynamite nor "dulling." The deadly "dull," or wire noose, is a fatal weapon against a trout.1903, Field and Stream, page 66
    • A horse with long, stiff hair in the tail was selected. […] a quick jerk [...] secured the material for a "dull." […] Then the "dull" was ready for use. […] the noose [was] slipped over the head to the gills and then with a quick jerk the sucker was dulled and pulled out of the water. Generally the...1929 June 1, “Notes from a Farmer's Experience”, in Southern Agriculturist, volume 59, page 8

Verb (2)

dull (third-person singular simple present dulls, present participle dulling, simple past and past participle dulled)

  1. (Ireland, Southern US, archaic, obsolete) To fish (or snare an animal, especially a fish) with such a noose.
    • I hope that the barbarous practice called dulling has gone out of fashion.1880 March 11, Forest and Stream
    • Play fair, boys. No dynamite nor "dulling." The deadly "dull," or wire noose, is a fatal weapon against a trout.1903, Field and Stream, page 66

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Dull

Dull (plural Dulls)

  1. A surname. of Scottish and German origin.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Dull

Dull

  1. A village in Perth and Kinross council area, Scotland.

dull meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

dull in Hindi

lacking the ability to cut easily; not sharp
कुंद kund

dull in Tamil

மந்தமாக, மங்கலாக, மழுங்கிய, மழுங்கு

dull in Marathi

dull, boorish, doltish
ठोंब्या ṭhombyā

dull in Urdu

بےرنگ, بےوقوف, دھندلا, ماند, ناسمجھ, ناشاد
More languagesFewer languages
dull in Bengali
হোঁতকা hō̃toka, ভোঁদাই bhō̃dai, মন্দ môndô
dull in Telugu
మందమతి mandamati, చప్ప cappa, మందము mandamu
dull in Malayalam
മൂർച്ച കുറഞ്ഞ mūṟcca kuṟañña, മുഷിഞ്ഞ muṣiñña
dull in Kannada
ಮಂಕಾದ, ಮಬ್ಬಾದ, ಪ್ರಕಾಶವಿಲ್ಲದ, ಮಂದವಾದ
dull in Punjabi
ਖੁੰਢਾ khuṇḍhā, ਬੇਜਾਨ bejān, ਫਿੱਕਾ phikkā
dull in Gujarati
નીરસ
dull in Odia
ନିସ୍ତେଜ, ନୀରସ
dull in Sanskrit
शीत śīta, स्थूल sthūlá, अरस arasá, कषाय kaṣāya
dull in Nepali
नीरस
dull in Tagalog
mapurol
dull in Arabic
كَلِيل kalīl
dull in Indonesian
tumpul
dull in Thai
ทื่อ tʉ̂ʉ
dull in Vietnamese
cùn, cùi
dull in Myanmar
တုံး tum:

Examples of dull in a sentence

  • But there we were given only the dullest, driest, pemmicanised forms like The Student's Hume, Once I had a hundred pages of The Student's Hume as a holiday task.2012, Winston S. Churchill, Martin Gilbert, Churchill: The Power of Words, page 14:
  • A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The...
  • The young bird had the plumage of the saddleback, not the even chestnut of the jackbird, although its plumage was rather duller than that of the adult.1959, Robert Adams Wilson, Bird Islands of New Zealand, page 67:
  • But I'm not a liar.’ ¶ ‘No,’ said Luke, grinning at her. ‘You're not dull enough! […] What about the kid's clothes?1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 15, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

All 40 example sentences with dull

Synonyms of dull

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

10 more antonymsFewer antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of dull

Forms of dull

Adjective
comparativeduller
superlativedullest
alternative formdul
alternative formdulle
Verb
third-person singular presentdulls
present participledulling
past participledulled
pastdulled
Noun
pluraldulls
Proper noun
pluralDulls

Past tense of dull: dulled

Origin of dull

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).

Probably from Irish dul, dol (“loop, noose, snare”).

* As a German surname, from dialectal tull (“stout, corpulent”) (see the adjective doll), or a variant of Thiel. See Duell. * As a Scottish surname, it is a habitational name from Dull in Perthshire (see Etymology 2). * As an English surname, variant of Dill, Doel.

Words formed from dull

Phrases with dull

Words that rhyme with dull

4 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about dull

What does dull mean?
Dull means lacking the ability to cut easily; not sharp.
What is dull in Hindi?
Dull in Hindi is कुंद (kund). See Dull meaning in Hindi.
How do you use dull in a sentence?
But there we were given only the dullest, driest, pemmicanised forms like The Student's Hume, Once I had a hundred pages of The Student's Hume as a holiday task.
What part of speech is dull?
Dull can be an adjective, a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce dull?
Dull is pronounced /dʌl/ (UK).

Words near dull in the dictionary

  1. Duling
  2. Dulings
  3. Dulins
  4. Duljo
  5. Duljo-Fatima
  6. dull
  7. dull as dishwater
  8. dull as ditchwater
  9. dull fish
  10. dull fishes
  11. dull-headed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dull (page history and authors); Dull (page history and authors); dull (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ठोंब्या (Marathi) (page history and authors); dull (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ভোঁদাই (Bengali) (page history and authors); చప్ప (Telugu) (page history and authors); മുഷിഞ്ഞ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); dull (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਖੁੰਢਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); dull (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dull (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); अरस (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); dull (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dull.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Back ache-dull.wav.

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