Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Lacking in brightness.
- adjective Emitting only a small amount of light; faint: synonym: dark.
- adjective Lacking luster; dull or subdued.
- adjective Faintly or unclearly perceived; indistinct.
- adjective Lacking sharpness or clarity; vague.
- adjective Weak or diminished; feeble.
- adjective Negative, unfavorable, or disapproving.
- adjective Dull or slow-witted.
- transitive & intransitive verb To make or become dim.
- noun A parking light on a motor vehicle.
- noun A low beam.
- noun Archaic Dusk.
from The Century Dictionary.
- 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.
- 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.
- noun The dark; darkness; night.
- An abbreviation of
diminuendo . - noun An abbreviation of diminutive
- noun of the Latin dimidius, one half.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Not bright or distinct; wanting luminousness or clearness; obscure in luster or sound; dusky; darkish; obscure; indistinct; overcast; tarnished.
- adjective Of obscure vision; not seeing clearly; hence, dull of apprehension; of weak perception; obtuse.
- transitive verb 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.
- transitive verb To deprive of distinct vision; to hinder from seeing clearly, either by dazzling or clouding the eyes; to darken the senses or understanding of.
- intransitive verb To grow dim.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Not
bright or colorful. - adjective Not
smart or intelligent. - adjective
Indistinct ,hazy or unclear. - adjective
Disapproving , unfavorable: rarely used outside the phrasetake a dim view of . - verb transitive To make something less
bright . - verb intransitive To become
darker .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb become dim or lusterless
- verb make dim or lusterless
- adjective made dim or less bright
- adjective lacking in light; not bright or harsh
- verb become vague or indistinct
- adjective lacking clarity or distinctness
- adjective slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity
- verb make dim by comparison or conceal
- adjective offering little or no hope
- verb switch (a car's headlights) from a higher to a lower beam
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word dim.
Examples
-
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.
-
Those numbers are light blue colored, they are nearly invisible to me 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.
-
Those numbers are light blue colored, they are nearly invisible to me in dim light.
-
Frankly, even with glasses that correct my once-perfect vision back to theoretically perfect vision, I have trouble reading fine print in dim light.
The Dimming of America « L.E. Modesitt, Jr. – The Official Website
-
Frankly, even with glasses that correct my once-perfect vision back to theoretically perfect vision, I have trouble reading fine print in dim light.
-
Those numbers are light blue colored, they are nearly invisible to me in dim light.
-
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.
-
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.
T-Mobile G2: A compelling though possibly unhinged Android phone
kringlan commented on the word dim
Context: "it doesn't treat the reader as dim or ignorant in any way" (on The Golden Compass)
November 21, 2007