Adjective

(er)

Having a thick edge or point, as an instrument; not sharp.

* (William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

The murderous knife was dull and blunt .

*{{quote-book, year=1944, author=(w)

, title= The Three Corpse Trick, section=chapter 5 , passage=The dinghy was trailing astern at the end of its painter, and Merrion looked at it as he passed. He saw that it was a battered-looking affair of the prahm type, with a blunt snout, and like the parent ship, had recently been painted a vivid green.}}

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=17 citation , passage=The face which emerged was not reassuring. It was blunt and grey, the nose springing thick and flat from high on the frontal bone of the forehead, whilst his eyes were narrow slits of dark in a tight bandage of tissue. […].}}

Dull in understanding; slow of discernment; opposed to acute.

* (William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

His wits are not so blunt .

Abrupt in address; plain; unceremonious; wanting the forms of civility; rough in manners or speech.

the blunt admission that he had never liked my company

* (William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

a plain, blunt man

Hard to impress or penetrate.

* (Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)

I find my heart hardened and blunt to new impressions.

Slow or deficient in feeling: insensitive.

Adjective

(en adjective)

Inclined to find fault or criticize; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting.

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Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis or turning point.

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*

*:Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability:it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.

Extremely important.

:

*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=September-October, author= Katie L. Burke

, magazine=(American Scientist), title= In the News , passage=Oxygen levels on Earth skyrocketed 2.4 billion years ago, when cyanobacteria evolved photosynthesis:

Relating to criticism or careful analysis, such as literary or film criticism.

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(lb) Of a patient condition involving unstable vital signs and a prognosis that predicts the condition could worsen; or, a patient condition that requires urgent treatment in an intensive care or critical care medical facility.

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Likely to go out of control if disturbed, that is, opposite of stable.

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Of the point (in temperature, reagent concentration etc.) where a nuclear or chemical reaction becomes self-sustaining.

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