Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Lacking in brightness: a dim room.
- adj. Emitting only a small amount of light; faint: a dim lightbulb.
- adj. Lacking luster; dull and subdued.
- adj. Faintly outlined; indistinct: a dim figure in the distance.
- adj. Obscure to the mind or the senses: a dim recollection of the accident.
- adj. Lacking sharpness or clarity of understanding or perception. See Synonyms at dark.
- adj. Lacking keenness or vigor.
- adj. Negative, unfavorable, or disapproving: took a dim view of their prospects.
- adj. Slang Dull; dimwitted.
- v. To make or become dim.
- n. A parking light on a motor vehicle.
- n. A low beam.
- n. Archaic Dusk.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Faintly luminous; somewhat obscure from lack of light or luminosity; dark; obscure; shadowy.
- Not clearly seen; indistinct; obscured by some intervening medium imperfectly transparent, as mist or haze; misty; hazy; hence, figuratively, not clearly apprehended; faint; vague: as, a dim prospect; a dim recollection.
- Dull in luster; lusterless; tarnished.
- Not seeing clearly; having the vision obscured and indistinct, as the eye.
- Not clearly apprehending; dull of apprehension.
- =Syn.2. Indistinct, ill-defined, indefinite, shadowy, confused, mysterious, imperfect.
- n. The dark; darkness; night.
- To make dim, faint, or obscure; render less bright, clear, or distinct; becloud; obscure; tarnish; sully: as, to dim the eye; to dim the vision; to dim the prospect; to dim gold.
- To become dim, faint, or obscure; fade.
- An abbreviation of diminuendo.
- n. An abbreviation of diminutive
- n. of the Latin dimidius, one half.
Wiktionary
- adj. Not bright or colorful.
- adj. Not smart or intelligent.
- adj. Indistinct, hazy or unclear.
- adj. Disapproving, unfavorable: rarely used outside the phrase take a dim view of.
- v. transitive To make something less bright.
- v. intransitive To become darker.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Not bright or distinct; wanting luminousness or clearness; obscure in luster or sound; dusky; darkish; obscure; indistinct; overcast; tarnished.
- adj. Of obscure vision; not seeing clearly; hence, dull of apprehension; of weak perception; obtuse.
- v. To render dim, obscure, or dark; to make less bright or distinct; to take away the luster of; to darken; to dull; to obscure; to eclipse.
- v. To deprive of distinct vision; to hinder from seeing clearly, either by dazzling or clouding the eyes; to darken the senses or understanding of.
- v. To grow dim.
WordNet 3.0
- v. become dim or lusterless
- v. make dim or lusterless
- adj. made dim or less bright
- adj. lacking in light; not bright or harsh
- v. become vague or indistinct
- adj. lacking clarity or distinctness
- adj. slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity
- v. make dim by comparison or conceal
- adj. offering little or no hope
- v. switch (a car's headlights) from a higher to a lower beam
Etymologies
- Old English dimm. Compare Icelandic dimmur ("dark") and dimma ("darkness"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I finally got over to the archives at the Lowell Cultural Center and spent a few hours sitting in dim light trying to read 100 year old scribbles.”
“Night vision declines as well; therefore, trying to read labels in dim lighting may lead to errors.”
“Frankly, even with glasses that correct my once-perfect vision back to theoretically perfect vision, I have trouble reading fine print in dim light.”
“Here in dim and desperate forms, under the ban of our base culture, stormed at by silly magistrates, sneered at by silly schoolmasters -- here is the old popular literature still popular; here is the unmistakable voluminousness, the thousand-and-one tales of Dick Deadshot, like the thousand-and-one tales of Robin Hood.”
“The raised back-lit keys of the physical QWERTY keyboard, which included three programmable shortcuts, were well spaced and easy to find in dim light.”
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“Those numbers are light blue colored, they are nearly invisible to me in dim light.”
“If this be denied him, then must he have acted wholly by instinct -- which would seem more marvellous on the face of it than if, in dim ways, he had performed a vague thought-process.”
“Pretty much everything suprises John McCain; McCain's light bulb, which was always pretty dim, is dimming even more rapidly.”
“My next stop was the clothing retailer that happened to be closest to where I parked at the mall, where I bought black slacks that could sort of match the suit jacket from a distance in dim lighting, and dress shirts.”
“Everything he saw was in dim monochrome, suggesting it was either really early or he was really tired.”
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Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dim’.
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3-Letter Scrabble Words Which Do Not ...
A list of 3-letter words which cannot be formed by adding a letter to a 2-letter word (see Ken Clark's word lists found at http://www.seattlescrab...
ace, act, aff, aft, apo, app, apt, auk, ava, ave, avo, azo and 225 more...
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EN - 3-letter words of the pattern CVC
With the exception of abbreviations and mosaic words all types of words (proper names, past tense of verbs, etc.) are allowed.
for, was, not, his, but, has, had, can, her, him, new, now and 339 more...
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Unknown
coalition, cabinet, tweet, defuse, steep, ancestral, mindset, breach, infraction, egregious, curb, backbite and 282 more...
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RELI - Genesis
Protagonists and relevant words in the Book of Creation (Source: King James Bible)
wrath, leaf, belly, prey, death, break, six, nod, dim, end, inn, judge and 1286 more...
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3-letter Scrabble Words
aah, aal, aas, aba, abo, abs, aby, ace, act, add, ado, ads and 995 more...
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3 Letter Words
A list of English words that are three letters long.
ace, act, ade, ado, add, ads, age, ago, ail, air, aim, all and 397 more...
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Just not to bright
words describing people or things that just aren't very intelligent
galah, idiot, simpleton, dufus, dummy, stupid, moron, moronic, idiocy, dimwit, special, on the short bus and 10 more...
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beyond pale
Words meaning or invoking the different aspects of pale.
Not just colour, but also the ideas of impermanence, illness, weakness. (Just not the two noun forms – a thin strip of metal or woo...pale, pallid, wan, light, misty, ethereal, cream, dim, white, thin, waning, colourless and 62 more...
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ebaysalvageyard
ebay, wood, carved, basket, ebay!, that's, expensive,, sold, junk, cheap, ripoff, snipe and 27 more...
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Words for my English Learners
vast, superfluous, inevitable, though, pervasive, overwhelm, assume, presume, curious, eccentric, whimsical, quaint and 12 more...
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Words Made Of Roman Numerals
dividivi, cimicic, civic, civil, idic, dill, livid, mild, ilicic, vivid, clim, imidic and 43 more...
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kringlan's Words
fecund, riposte, nebbish, nonpareil, deign, eschew, imbroglio, spelunking, fop, foofaraw, tundra, talon and 128 more...
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Whatever Works (2009)
Words from 2009 'Whatever Works' film.
fault, racket, unto, flaw, fallacious, notion, decent, embalm, filch, delusion, delusions of gran..., grandeur and 135 more...
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Some Words I Love to Use
arcology, strumpet, crux, confected, pedant, bluestocking, cogitation, incensed, lovecraftian, cygnet, dactyl, adytum and 539 more...
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Setting the Scene: Dark and Dreary
Words that lend to the dark and dreary atmosphere of gothic literature.
dark, dreary, shroud, shrouded, veiled, skeleton, skeletal, dead, death, murky, gloomy, lugubrious and 274 more...
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The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
Tweets
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kringlan Context: "it doesn't treat the reader as dim or ignorant in any way" (on The Golden Compass) Nov 21, 2007