Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use dumb in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, verb, adverb

Dumb means unable to speak; lacking power of speech. Example: “His younger brother was born dumb, and communicated with sign language.”

Examples of dumb by meaning

adjectiveUnable to speak; lacking power of speech.

  • deaf, dumb, and blind
  • His younger brother was born dumb, and communicated with sign language.
  • 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...

adjectivePointless, 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.

verbTo silence.

  • 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

verbTo 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

verbTo 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

adverbVery, extremely.

  • It's dumb good."2017, Don Winslow, The Force, London: HarperCollins Publishers, →ISBN, page 134
  • 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

adjectiveAn intensifier expressing contempt; damn, damned.

  • "It's a dumb shame, too.2002, Glenna Whiteaker Wilding, Tales of a Ridgerunner: The Adventures of a Young Family Growing Up in the East Tennessee Mountains, 1890s...

More sentences with dumb

  • The public won't understand this concept. We need to dumb down our explanation of it.From the entry dumb down
  • I was struck dumb. Here was the most handsome man I’d ever seen in my life coming out of the surf.From the entry handsome
  • He plays dumb, but actually he's very clever.From the entry play
  • Television has really dumbed down over the past ten years.From the entry dumb down
  • Your reasoning seems needlessly abstruse, complex, and verbose for me. I mean, could you dumb it down for my sake?From the entry mean
  • I ignored all the whoo-hahs asking dumb questions.From the entry whoo-hah
  • I was struck dumb with astonishment.From the entry strike
  • Who would want to sit next to Larry, the guy who's too dumb not to blow his cigar smoke in your face?From the entry in someone's face
  • I'm so sapio, the sec someone come across dumb, I'm turned off lol.2024 May 7, @5_D, Twitter, archived from the original on 29 May 2024. From the entry sapio
  • It wasn't jebait, sometimes I have these days and make dumb mistakes.2018 November 8, Nicole Carpenter, quoting Daniel Francesca (Dafran), “Dafran confirms that he's still playing for Atlanta Reign in the…. From the entry jebait
  • You were dealing with a person who was an 85 percenter: dumb, deaf, and blind.2018, U-God [Lamont Hawkins], Raw: My Journey Into The Wu-Tang, New York, N.Y.: Picador, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 149. From the entry beastful
  • U are the biggest liar here, all know you are also the dumbest.2018 November 5, abook...@yahoo.com, “Re: Docs boyfriend vandalized synagogue 11 days after”, in alt.prophecies.nostradamus (Usenet). From the entry pedovore
  • I'm leaving next week, Betsy.” “Really, where are you going?” Betsy played dumb.2016, Mary Peters, Betsy, The Coalminer's Daughter, New Generation Publishing, →ISBN. From the entry lend
  • Her hair was on fleek or whatever them dumb hoes be saying on Instagram.2015 April 1, Deborah Collins, “TC”, in Down Bad, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN. From the entry on fleek
  • Dumb money, which is a heck of a lot of investors, misses the mark on both sides.2014, Pamela Yellen, The Bank On Yourself Revolution, BenBella Books, Inc., →ISBN, page 27. From the entry dumb money
  • Some of these mothertruckin' bosses say it makes you appear more dumber (54 percent).2013, Alan Corey, The Subversive Job Search. From the entry mothertruckin'
  • But frankly, I think it's because he's dumb as a bag of hammers.2012 April 24, Telltale Games, The Walking Dead, Windows, Mac OS, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iOS, Kindle Fire, scene: Greene Family Farm. From the entry dumb as a bag of hammers
  • I told her I was supersorry and that it was really dumb.2012, Jason Myers, Run the Game, page 260. From the entry supersorry
  • Some man acting dumb, think's he's a gun-man, wanna bring me drama.2011, Jme, Mike Lowery. From the entry bun
  • Almost everyone knows we have dumbed down our schools and have to undumb them.2010 May 11, Ben Wattenberg, Values Matter Most: How Republicans, or Democrats, or a Third Party Can Win and Renew the American Way of…. From the entry undumb
  • But a dumb jock who's also a single-minded horn dog—that's funny.2009 September 7, May Seah, “Top 10 television ignoramuses. Duh!”, in channelnewsasia.com, retrieved 10 Jan 2010. From the entry other head
  • “I'll not be treated like a lack-wit, too dumb t'pee on my own, either,” Lewrie rejoined.2004, Dewey Lambdin, Havoc's Sword. From the entry lack-wit
  • The drummer in my friend's band is pretty hot, but he's dumb as a box of rocks.2001 July, “Tell it to my Heart”, in CMJ New Music Monthly, →ISSN, page 29. From the entry dumb as a box of rocks
  • U R so very stompable and so very naive and so very very dumb.2001 August 21, Curbstomp, “More proof Pedophile idiocy”, in alt.fan.air (Usenet). From the entry stompable
  • I am not a proper sci.physicist, but just a dumb musician whose "day job" involves some physics.2000 October 5, Francis Deck, “Bells vs gongs”, in sci.physics (Usenet), retrieved 28 Apr 2022. From the entry sci.physicist
  • Then, why not pray to the trees, for cryin' out loud, and next, the dumb birds?1999, Tom Hanley, Flyboys, page 25. From the entry for cryin' out loud
  • WHAT DO pinups, girl reporters, dumb blonds, wimmin’s libbers, and riot grrrlz have in common?1999, Trina Robbins, From Girls to Grrrlz: A History of ♀ Comics from Teens to Zines, San Francisco, Calif.: Chronicle Books, →ISBN, back…. From the entry riot grrrlz
  • The ‘tabloiding’ of local newspapers has resulted in a ‘dumbing down’ of the local press.1998, Bob Franklin, David Murphy, “Changing Times: Local Newspapers, Technology and Markets”, in Bob Franklin, David Murphy, editors…. From the entry tabloid
  • “Your old man was a dumb, sot, potatohead,” says Johnson Gayle, who lost his last set 6–2.1986, San José Studies - Volumes 12-13, page 51. From the entry potatohead

Meaning of dumb

  1. adjective Unable to speak; lacking power of speech.
  2. adjective Not talkative; taciturn or unwilling to speak.
  3. adjective Having no input or voice in running things.

Full definition of dumb

Questions about dumb in a sentence

How do you use dumb in a sentence?
Dumb is used as an adjective, verb and adverb. For example: “His younger brother was born dumb, and communicated with sign language.”
What is a short sentence with dumb?
“It's dumb good."”
What does dumb mean?
Dumb means unable to speak; lacking power of speech.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dumb (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use dumb in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/dumb. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.