Word.ws English Dictionary

dumb

/dʌm/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

South Asia/ɖəm(b)/

dumb adjective: unable to speak; lacking power of speech.

Adjective (1)

dumb (comparative dumber, superlative dumbest)

  1. (dated) Unable to speak; lacking power of speech.
    • deaf, dumb, and blind
    • His younger brother was born dumb, and communicated with sign language.
  2. (archaic) Not talkative; taciturn or unwilling to speak.
  3. (dated) Having no input or voice in running things.
    • Life was never a May-game for men; in all times the lot of the dumb-millions born to toil was defaced with manifold sufferings, injustices, heavy burdens, avoidable and unavoidable; not play at all, but hard work that made the sinews sore, and the heart sore.1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Democracy”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern Worker), page 210
  4. (dated, usually, actions) Unaccompanied by words or speech, silent, wordless.
    • dumb show
    • Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak
      In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  5. (dated) Not producing any sound, silent.
    • […] Thro’ lands where not a leaf was dumb;
      ⁠But all the lavish hills would hum
      The murmur of a happy Pan: […]1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXIII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 39
  6. (derogatory, especially, informal) Stupid.
    • You are so dumb! You don't even know how to make toast!
    Antonyms:
    intelligent, smart
  7. (figuratively) Pointless, foolish, lacking intellectual content or value.
    • This is dumb! We're driving in circles! We should have asked for directions an hour ago!
    • Brendan had the dumb job of moving boxes from one conveyor belt to another.
  8. Lacking some functionality or property ordinarily characteristic of its kind.
  9. Not equipped with intelligent behavior or processing capabilities of its own.
    Antonyms:
    smart
  10. (obsolete, rare) Lacking brightness or clearness as a colour; dim, dull.
    • Her stern, which was painted of a dumb white or dun color.1720, Daniel Defoe, The Life, Adventures and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton

Verb

dumb (third-person singular simple present dumbs, present participle dumbing, simple past and past participle dumbed)

  1. (dated, transitive) To silence.
    • […] what I would have spoke
      Was beastly dumbed by him.c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
    • The paralysis of the Northern conscience, the dumbing of the Northern voice, were coming to an end.1911, Lindsay Swift, William Lloyd Garrison, page 272
  2. (transitive) To make stupid.
    • I think she's dumbing us down, so we won't be smarter than her.2003, Angela Calabrese Barton, Teaching Science for Social Justice, page 124
  3. (transitive) To represent as stupid.
    • Bad-mouthing Neanderthals […] is symptomatic of a need to exclude and even demonize. […] I suggest that the unproven dumbing of the Neanderthals is an example of the same cultural preconception.2004, Stephen Oppenheimer, The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa, page 107
  4. (transitive) To reduce the intellectual demands of.
    • The ensuing storm caused the department to lower the bar—amid protests that this was dumbing the test down—so that only 80 percent of urban kids would fail.2002, Deborah Meier, In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning in an Era of Testing, page 126

Adverb

dumb (not comparable)

  1. (African-American Vernacular) Very, extremely.
    • "What, you don't like your food?" Russo asks. ¶ "Are you kidding? It's dumb good."2017, Don Winslow, The Force, London: HarperCollins Publishers, →ISBN, page 134
    • Yo this shit is crazy how these females are making these doctors rich. My baby moms Miracle is getting surgery in a week or so. She's flying out to Colombia. That shit really baffles me as far as she's concerned, because Miracle is already dumb thick. I'm like damn ma, how big do you want your ass...2019, Natisha Raynor, She Made a Savage Change His Ways 2, Atlanta, G.A.: Royalty Publishing House, →ISBN, page 4
    Synonyms:
    type, mad, hella, wicked, odee, bare

Adjective (2)

dumb (comparative more dumb, superlative most dumb)

  1. (dated, African-American Vernacular) An intensifier expressing contempt; damn, damned.
    • Pap came to stand beside her and watched the two play. "That pup has just plum' fell in love with our Sammy, an' Sam's real took by him," Pap said. "It's a dumb shame, too. I talked to Jim, but he's not of a mind to sell."2002, Glenna Whiteaker Wilding, Tales of a Ridgerunner: The Adventures of a Young Family Growing Up in the East Tennessee Mountains, 1890s - 1920s, Prospect, K.Y.: Harmony House Publishers, →ISBN...

Noun capitalized: DUMB

DUMB (plural DUMBs)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of D.U.M.B. (deep underground military base)

Adjective (3) capitalized: DUMB

DUMB (not comparable)

  1. (mnemonic) An acronym for remembering desirable characteristics for goal-setting: dream-driven, uplifting, method-driven, behavior-driven.
    • Whatever your goals, starting with a DUMB goal gives a great outline and starting off point to start building your plan of action.2023 January 23, Jana Arevalo, “How to set DUMB goals”, in The Organized Military Life, archived from the original on 24 Jan 2023

dumb meaning in Punjabi, Sanskrit, Arabic and Indonesian

dumb in Punjabi

ਗੂੰਗਾ, ਗੂੰਗੇ, ਗੂੰਗੀ

dumb in Sanskrit

stupid
अज्ञान ajñāna, मूर mūra, मूर्ख mūrkha, जल jala, मूढ mūḍha, निर्बुद्धि nirbud'dhi

dumb in Arabic

stupid
غَبِيّ ḡabiyy

dumb in Indonesian

stupid
dungu
More languagesFewer languages
dumb in Persian
کودن kowdan, خنگ xeng, دبنگ dabang
dumb in Thai
โง่ ngôo

Examples of dumb in a sentence

  • to unloose the very tongues even of dumb creatures[1594], Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Iohn Windet, […], →OCLC...
  • But I had no fear of remaining dumb in Turkestan and the Celestial Empire.a. 1905, anonymous translator, The Adventures of a Special Correspondent Among the Various Races and Countries of Central Asia, translation...
  • Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow / What you need is someone strong to guide you1992, “Opiate”, performed by Tool:
  • That shit really baffles me as far as she's concerned, because Miracle is already dumb thick.2019, Natisha Raynor, She Made a Savage Change His Ways 2, Atlanta, G.A.: Royalty Publishing House, →ISBN, page 4:

All 40 example sentences with dumb

Synonyms of dumb

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of dumb

Forms of dumb

Adjective
comparativedumber
superlativedumbest
comparativemore dumb
superlativemost dumb
Verb
third-person singular presentdumbs
present participledumbing
past participledumbed
pastdumbed
Noun
pluralDUMBs

Origin of dumb

From Middle English dumb (“silent, speechless, mute, ineffectual”), from Old English dumb (“silent, speechless, mute, unable to speak”), from Proto-West Germanic *dumb, from Proto-Germanic *dumbaz (“dull, dumb”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure”). The senses of stupid, unintellectual, and pointless, which are found regularly since the 19th century only, probably developed under the influence of German dumm and Dutch dom. Just like the English word, these originally meant "lacking the power of speech", but they developed the mentioned senses early on. Cognates Cognate with Scots dumb (“dumb, silent”), North Frisian dom, domme (“dumb, stupid”), West Frisian dom (“dumb, stupid”), Dutch dom (“dumb, stupid”), German dumm (“dumb, stupid”), Danish dum (“stupid”), Swedish dum (“stupid”), Icelandic dumbur (“dumb, mute”). See also deaf.

From Middle English dumben, from Old English *dumbian (found in the compound ādumbian (“to become mute or dumb; keep silence; hold one’s peace”)), from Proto-Germanic *dumbijaną, *dumbōną (“to be silent, become dumb”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure”). Cognate with German verdummen (“to become dumb”).

A minced oath of damn.

Words formed from dumb

Phrases with dumb

66 more phrasesFewer phrases

Questions about dumb

What does dumb mean?
Dumb means unable to speak; lacking power of speech.
What is dumb in Punjabi?
Dumb in Punjabi is ਗੂੰਗਾ, ਗੂੰਗੇ, ਗੂੰਗੀ. See Dumb meaning in Punjabi.
How do you use dumb in a sentence?
to unloose the very tongues even of dumb creatures
What part of speech is dumb?
Dumb can be an adjective, a verb, an adverb or a noun.
How do you pronounce dumb?
Dumb is pronounced /dʌm/.

Words near dumb in the dictionary

  1. Dumaresq Island
  2. Dumaresq Valley
  3. Dumaresqs
  4. dumas
  5. Dumasian
  6. dumb
  7. dumb ague
  8. dumb as a bag of hammers
  9. dumb as a box of rocks
  10. dumb as a brick
  11. dumb as a doorknob

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dumb (page history and authors); DUMB (page history and authors); dumb (Punjabi, 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-ca-dumb.oga.

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