dumb

CEFRB1

/dʌm/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    Stupid or showing poor judgment.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Unable to speak; now considered an old term.

Examples

  • Helen Keller was blind, deaf and dumb.

  • I'm so dumb... I'm trying to explain things to you that I don't understand myself.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Also pronounced

  • /ɖəm(b)/

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

  1. Having no input or voice in running things.

  2. Not talkative; taciturn or unwilling to speak.

  3. Unable to speak; lacking power of speech.

More examples

In context

  • That was a pretty dumb thing to do.

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

  • deaf, dumb, and blind

Synonyms

Antonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The loud noise left him blank and unable to speak for a minute.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

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 Frisia...