Log in or Sign up

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Uninteresting and tiresome; dull.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. The act of piercing or perforating; specifically, in mining and similar operations, the act of making a hole in rock or earth by means of a borer or drill. This is often executed on a large scale by the aid of machinery. Wells and shafts several feet in diameter are now bored without blasting, as has been done in Paris in sinking artesian wells, in the great northern coal-fields of France and Belgium, and elsewhere.
  2. n. The hole made by boring. Holes of small depth bored with the drill for blasting are called bore-holes. Deep holes bored for any purpose are called borings, and if of large diameter shafts or wells, according as they are intended for use in mining or for supplying water.
  3. n. plural The chips, fragments, or dust produced in boring. Also called boring-dust.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A pit or hole which has been bored.
  2. v. present participle of bore.
  3. adj. That which incites boredom in a person.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. The act or process of one who, or that which, bores.
  2. n. A hole made by boring.
  3. n. The chips or fragments made by boring.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. so lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness
  2. n. the act of drilling a hole in the earth in the hope of producing petroleum
  3. n. the act of drilling

Examples

  • “The idea is that you can be boring on facebook, or you can be just plain *boring*.”

    5 ways to be boring on Facebook - 22 Words

  • “The servers with a Pax just got *boring*, and while in the real world boring is good these aren't real worlds.”

    Scarcely rare

  • “BUT if you packed on 60 pounds of "comfort weight", got boring in bed (yes, ladies, * boring*), unilaterally quit your high-paying job to "discover yourself" / raise kids (i.e., let him work, while you live), started riding his @ss about things rather than treating him like an equal, etc., you might realize something my guy buddies often bitch about: YOU CHANGED!!!!!!”

    Seattle Weekly | Complete Issue

  • “The difference is that these claims would once have been shouted down: it's what the phrase "boring old fart" was invented for.”

    The Guardian: Stone Roses reunion: What's the worst that can happen?

  • “I know from my entertainment business friends that one of the worst words in a review that can be made about a performance is the word boring.”

    The Huffington Post: Beverly Macy: Content Matters: The Difference Between Charlie Sheen and Food Trucks

  • “But that was long ago, long before he and Lou turned into what he calls boring people.”

    NPR: 'Bigger Than Life': A Subversive Suburban Surprise

  • “As a teenager she rebelled against what she called the boring “Americanized business culture” of her relatives, criticizing their attachment to material things, their concern with subtle class distinctions within the family, and their negative view of more recent Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.”

    Hortense Powdermaker.

  • “People use the word 'boring' as a defence mechanism about anything they don't like because they are afraid of it, afraid of embarking on a journey that may ... require an emotional investment.”

    Evening Standard - Home

  • “Watson, who finally put some attention back on his golf, played in the morning and produced what he called a "boring" round of 64 that included an eagle on the seventh hole for the second straight day.”

    StarTribune.com rss feed

  • “Watson played in the morning and produced what he called a "boring" round of 64 that included an eagle on the seventh hole for the second straight day.”

    SFGate: Top News Stories

Show 10 more examples...

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • uselessness Reminds me of Normal, Illinois. *pronounces Illinois as "eely nwah"* Nov 14, 2007

  • peregrina The town of Boring, Oregon: home of the Boring School, the Boring Church, the Boring Post Office, among other Boring things. (Actually it's quite a nice place!) Nov 14, 2007

  • oroboros Contronymic in the sense: incisive vs. dull. Jan 27, 2007

‘boring’ has been looked up 1950 times, added to 15 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 9.