Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Lacking the power of speech. Used of animals and inanimate objects.
- adj. Often Offensive Incapable of using speech; mute. Used of humans. See Usage Note at mute.
- adj. Temporarily speechless, as with shock or fear: I was dumb with disbelief.
- adj. Unwilling to speak; taciturn.
- adj. Not expressed or articulated in sounds or words: dumb resentment.
- adj. Nautical Not self-propelling.
- adj. Conspicuously unintelligent; stupid: dumb officials; a dumb decision.
- adj. Unintentional; haphazard: dumb luck.
- v. To make silent or dumb.
- down Slang To rewrite for a less educated or less sophisticated audience.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Mute; silent; refraining from speech.
- Destitute of the power of speech; unable to utter articulate sounds: as, a deaf and dumb person; the dumb brutes.
- Mute; not accompanied with or emitting speech or sound: as, a dumb show; dumb signs.
- Hence Lacking some usual power, manifestation, characteristic, or accompaniment; destitute of reality in some respect; irregular; simulative: as, dumb ague; dumb craft. See phrases below.
- Dull; stupid; doltish.
- Deficient in clearness or brightness, as a color.
- Synonyms and Mute, etc. See silent.
- To become dumb; be silent.
- To make dumb; silence; overpower the sound of.
Wiktionary
- adj. Unable to speak; lacking power of speech.
- adj. informal, pejorative, especially of a person extremely stupid.
- adj. figuratively Pointless, foolish, lacking intellectual content or value.
- v. To silence.
- v. transitive To make stupid.
- v. transitive To represent as stupid.
- v. transitive To reduce the intellectual demands of.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Destitute of the power of speech; unable; to utter articulate sounds.
- adj. Not willing to speak; mute; silent; not speaking; not accompanied by words.
- adj. rare Lacking brightness or clearness, as a color.
- v. obsolete To put to silence.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. temporarily incapable of speaking
- adj. unable to speak because of hereditary deafness
- adj. slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity
- adj. lacking the power of human speech
Etymologies
- From Middle English dumb, from Old English dumb ("silent, silent, speechless, mute, unable to speak"), from Proto-Germanic *dumbaz (“dull, dumb”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeubʰ- (“to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure”). Cognate with Scots dumb ("dumb, silent"), North Frisian dom, domme ("dumb, stupid"), West Frisian dom ("dumb, stupid"), Dutch dom ("dumb, stupid"), German dumm ("dumb, stupid"), Swedish dum ("stupid"), Icelandic dumbur ("dumb, mute"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Boy were we dumb to read them back in the 60's..dumb but ahh what silly fun.”
“DUMB: A dumb wine is also a closed wine, but the term dumb is used in a more pejorative sense.”
“The software features it offers are brutally malfunctioning such as the simplest OR operation which reduces the (purportedly) 159,000 item set for the term dumb to (purportedly) 92,000 items when the query is broadened to dumb OR dumber.”
“To correct the error involved in the term dumb, it is customary to speak of human beings who do not hear and speak as deaf-mutes, a term which implies that they are silent, but not necessarily incapable of speaking.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5: Diocese-Fathers of Mercy
“To such may be applied the term dumb, inasmuch as they are either destitute of the power of speech or are unwilling to speak and are lacking in intelligence.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5: Diocese-Fathers of Mercy
“The White House on Tuesday was to release plans for an overhaul of what it calls "dumb" regulations.”
“His most notable stance was clear opposition to the invasion of Iraq, which he called a "dumb war" at a 2002 peace rally in Chicago.”
The Guardian: Obama's visit marks a new special relationship of the super-realists | Jacob Weisberg
“These financial influences like investment banks, hedge funds, and ETFs exchange-traded funds allow what I call "dumb money" to enter the oil markets.”
“I mean, you can call yourself a republican, a democrat, a liberal, or a conservative, but dumb is just plain dumb.”
“And then he talked to me about that what he called dumb and wrong, those comments he made during a taping of a program.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dumb’.
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CULI - wine-tasting adjectives
In this area of expertise nouns are frequently used as adjectives (almond, bacon, cider, diesel, fennel, fresh-cut hay, wool) or new adjectives are formed (appley, berrylike, citrusy, full-bodied, ...
acetic, acidic, aged, angular, appley, astringent, attractive, austere, berrylike, big, bitter, brawny and 511 more...
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RELI - words with Biblical connotations
Words in the Bible evoking biblical stories or with special spiritual meaning. Proper names have been reduced to the minimum.
ark, judgement, holy, saint, baptism, spirit, love, eternal, altar, balsam, covenant, flood and 1115 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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ebaysalvageyard
ebay, wood, carved, basket, ebay!, that's, expensive,, sold, junk, cheap, ripoff, snipe and 27 more...
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You Don't Say
Language disorders, disabilities, and unusual demonstrations.
aphasia, aphonia, dysarthria, glossolalia, paraphasia, alexia, polymicrogyria, logorrhea, stutter, spoonerism, agraphia, malapropism and 54 more...
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Twitter faves
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
niglets, aw, flakey, shiznit, thatch, sexy, bummers, hotty, eargasms, ratchetry, weird, fab and 457 more... -
SoSheShall's list
slurp, coeur, slurple, glop, perp, fluarxx, ropechno, herrherr, burrduhherrherr, sloppy, cheezie balls, eccentric and 634 more...
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Chainlink's Words
hat, opalescent, opal, emerald, sapphire, scythe, carnival, calliope, brilliant, awesome, feather, fantastic and 268 more...
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Words grabbed from real life conversa...
If I've seen it, heard it, or marvelled at it, I'll stick it here.
cruft, ermine, redundant, shakespearean, camino, marvelous, stupendous, chagrin, shaven, sleek, smug, stillness and 325 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 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...
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Gilian's list
penultimate, bittersweet, tertiary, surfactant, perquisite, hereditament, chartreuse, vis-à-vis, cephalopod, eructation, hussy, glimpse and 16 more...
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all words I know
hello, goodbye, up, down, sweet, kind, yahoo, interesting, sardonic, dumb, greeting, silly and 29 more...
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Silent "B"
climb, plumber, debt, comb, doubt, crumb, tomb, womb, dumb, thumb, bomb, limb and 2 more...
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Stuffie: Who's Keeping Score?
Stuffie #5. Stuff you play.
game, instrument, music, fool, around, along, nice, card, pretend, dead, dumb, king and 21 more...
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Poetrie: Appeal to the Grammarians
Oh yes. Yes indeed.
Appeal to the Grammarians
by Paul Violi
We, the naturally hopeful,
Need a simple sign
For the myriad ways we're capsized.
We wh...sneeze, veer, cannoli, espresso, odyssey, outset, pocket, underfoot, dumb, limp, inverted, incredulity and 10 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for dumb.

fartface Example sentence: this website is dumb. Jun 14, 2012