Definition
adjLacking the ability to cut easily; not sharp.
adjBoring; not exciting or interesting.
Sentence Examples
Geometry, about which I know nothing, seems like a very dull subject.
Perfection is a trifle dull.
Life in a small town could be deadly dull.
Word Origin & History
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).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
""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:
"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 Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0016:
"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:
"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] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]: