DULLNESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does dullness mean? 

• DULLNESS (noun)
  The noun DULLNESS has 5 senses:

1. the quality of being slow to understand

2. the quality of lacking interestingness

3. a lack of visual brightness

4. lack of sensibility

5. without sharpness or clearness of edge or point

  Familiarity information: DULLNESS used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DULLNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality of being slow to understand

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

dullness; obtuseness

Hypernyms ("dullness" is a kind of...):

stupidity (a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dullness"):

oscitance; oscitancy (drowsiness and dullness manifested by yawning)

Derivation:

dull (slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The quality of lacking interestingness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

the stories were of a dullness to bring a buffalo to its knees

Hypernyms ("dullness" is a kind of...):

uninterestingness (inability to capture or hold one's interest)

Attribute:

dull (lacking in liveliness or animation)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dullness"):

boringness; dreariness; insipidity; insipidness (extreme dullness; lacking spirit or interest)

tediousness; tedium; tiresomeness (dullness owing to length or slowness)

jejuneness; jejunity; tameness; vapidity; vapidness (the quality of being vapid and unsophisticated)

Derivation:

dull (lacking in liveliness or animation)

dull (so lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A lack of visual brightness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

the brightness of the orange sky was reflected in the dullness of the orange sea

Hypernyms ("dullness" is a kind of...):

visual property (an attribute of vision)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dullness"):

dimness; subduedness (the property of lights or sounds that lack brilliance or are reduced in intensity)

flatness; lusterlessness; lustrelessness; mat; matt; matte (the property of having little or no contrast; lacking highlights or gloss)

Antonym:

brightness (the location of a visual perception along a continuum from black to white)

Derivation:

dull (emitting or reflecting very little light)

dull ((of color) very low in saturation; highly diluted)

dull (darkened with overcast)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Lack of sensibility

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

without him the dullness of her life crept into her work no matter how she tried to compartmentalize it.

Hypernyms ("dullness" is a kind of...):

callosity; callousness; hardness; insensibility; unfeelingness (devoid of passion or feeling; hardheartedness)

Derivation:

dull (not keenly felt)

dull (blunted in responsiveness or sensibility)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Without sharpness or clearness of edge or point

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

bluntness; dullness

Context example:

the dullness of the pencil made his writing illegible

Hypernyms ("dullness" is a kind of...):

configuration; conformation; contour; form; shape (any spatial attributes (especially as defined by outline))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dullness"):

obtuseness (the quality of lacking a sharp edge or point)

Antonym:

sharpness (harshness of manner)

sharpness (thinness of edge or fineness of point)

Derivation:

dull (not having a sharp edge or point)

 Context examples 

Dullness is as much produced within doors as without, by rain.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

He went for a fortnight—a fortnight of such dullness to the Miss Bertrams as ought to have put them both on their guard, and made even Julia admit, in her jealousy of her sister, the absolute necessity of distrusting his attentions, and wishing him not to return; and a fortnight of sufficient leisure, in the intervals of shooting and sleeping, to have convinced the gentleman that he ought to keep longer away, had he been more in the habit of examining his own motives, and of reflecting to what the indulgence of his idle vanity was tending; but, thoughtless and selfish from prosperity and bad example, he would not look beyond the present moment.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Their parties abroad were less varied than before, and at home she had a mother and sister whose constant repinings at the dullness of everything around them threw a real gloom over their domestic circle; and, though Kitty might in time regain her natural degree of sense, since the disturbers of her brain were removed, her other sister, from whose disposition greater evil might be apprehended, was likely to be hardened in all her folly and assurance by a situation of such double danger as a watering-place and a camp.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

I made his honour my most humble acknowledgments for the good opinion he was pleased to conceive of me, but assured him at the same time, “that my birth was of the lower sort, having been born of plain honest parents, who were just able to give me a tolerable education; that nobility, among us, was altogether a different thing from the idea he had of it; that our young noblemen are bred from their childhood in idleness and luxury; that, as soon as years will permit, they consume their vigour, and contract odious diseases among lewd females; and when their fortunes are almost ruined, they marry some woman of mean birth, disagreeable person, and unsound constitution (merely for the sake of money), whom they hate and despise. That the productions of such marriages are generally scrofulous, rickety, or deformed children; by which means the family seldom continues above three generations, unless the wife takes care to provide a healthy father, among her neighbours or domestics, in order to improve and continue the breed. That a weak diseased body, a meagre countenance, and sallow complexion, are the true marks of noble blood; and a healthy robust appearance is so disgraceful in a man of quality, that the world concludes his real father to have been a groom or a coachman. The imperfections of his mind run parallel with those of his body, being a composition of spleen, dullness, ignorance, caprice, sensuality, and pride.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor then followed, and the others were left by themselves, to talk of the travellers, and feel their own dullness, till Mrs. Jennings was summoned to her chaise to take comfort in the gossip of her maid for the loss of her two young companions; and Colonel Brandon immediately afterwards took his solitary way to Delaford.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)