stolid

Adjective

stolid (comparative stolider, superlative stolidest)

1. Having or revealing little emotion or sensibility.
   • He went slowly to his tent and stretched himself on a blanket by the side of the snoring tall soldier. In the darkness he saw visions of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him to flee, while others were going coolly about their country's business. He admitted that he...1895 October, Stephen Crane, chapter II, in The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, pages 30–31
   • “A tinge of Jewish blood is not a bad thing. It leavens the”—she looked at him—“stolid stupidity of the ordinary Englishman.”1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 125

   Synonyms:

   cold-hearted, unfeeling, phlegmatic, alexithymic, apathistical, clinical, dull, cold-blooded, dead inside, dispassionate

2. Dully or heavily stupid.
   • Light laughs the breeze / In her Castle above them — / Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear, / Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence — / Ah, what sagacity perished here!a. 1887 (date written), Emily Dickinson, “[Book IV.—Time and Eternity] Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers”, in Mabel Loomis Todd and T[homas] W[entworth] Higginson, editors, Poems, First Series...
   • They (Eloi) all failed to understand my gestures; some were simply stolid, some thought it was a jest and laughed at me.1895 May 29, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter V, in The Time Machine: An Invention, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   slow-witted, thickheaded, addlebrained, addlepated, airheaded, bee-brained, beef-witted, soft, beefheaded, beetle-headed