Dull vs Clever - What's the difference?
dull | clever | Antonyms |
Lacking the ability to cut easily; not sharp.
:
Boring; not exciting or interesting.
:
:
Not shiny; having a matte finish or no particular luster or brightness.
:
:a dull''' fire or lamp; a '''dull''' red or yellow; mirror
*(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) (1807-1882)
*:As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so changes of study a dull brain.
*
*:A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull , small fire. In fact, that arm-chair had been an extravagance of Mrs. Bunting. She had wanted her husband to be comfortable after the day's work was done, and she had paid thirty-seven shillings for the chair.
Not bright or intelligent; stupid; slow of understanding.
*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
*:She is not bred so dull but she can learn.
*(William Makepeace Thackeray) (1811-1863)
*:dull at classical learning
*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=15 Sluggish, listless.
*(Bible), (w) xiii. 15
*:This people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing.
*(Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
*:O, help my weak wit and sharpen my dull tongue.
*, chapter=7
, title= Cloudy, overcast.
:
Insensible; unfeeling.
*(Beaumont and Fletcher) (1603-1625)
*:Think me not / So dull a devil to forget the loss / Of such a matchless wife.
Heavy; lifeless; inert.
*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
*:the dull earth
*(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) (1807-1882)
*:As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so changes of study a dull brain.
(of pain etc) Not intense; felt indistinctly or only slightly.
To render dull; to remove or blunt an edge or something that was sharp.
* Francis Bacon
To soften, moderate or blunt; to make dull, stupid, or sluggish; to stupefy.
* Shakespeare
* Trench
To lose a sharp edge; to become dull.
To render dim or obscure; to sully; to tarnish.
* Francis Bacon
Nimble with hands or body; skillful; adept.
* (Francis James Child) (collator), , 198: "Bonny John Seton",
Resourceful, sometimes to the point of cunning.
* 1890 , (Joseph Jacobs) (collator), '', ''English Fairy Tales ,
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= Smart, intelligent, or witty; mentally quick or sharp.
* 1860 , (John Timbs), School-Days of Eminent Men ,
* 1912', (Fyodor Dostoevsky), (Constance Garnett) (translator), '''', Book V, Chapter 7: "It's Always Worth While Speaking to a ' Clever Man",
* (rfdate), (Charles Kingsley), ,
Showing inventiveness or originality; witty.
* 1816 , (Jane Austen), , Volume 1, Chapter 9,
* 1919 , , Chapter III,
* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=April 10, author=Alistair Magowan, work=BBC Sport
, title= *{{quote-magazine, date=2014-04-11, author=
, volume=190, issue=18, page=37, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= Possessing magical abilities.
* 1904 , Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. XXXVIII,
* 1947 , Oceania, Volumes 16-17,
* 1991 , John & Sue Erbacher, Aborigines of the Rainforest ,
(label) Fit; suitable; having propriety.
* (Jonathan Swift) (1667–1745)
(label) Well-shaped; handsome.
* (John Arbuthnot) (1667-1735)
Good-natured; obliging.
Dull is an antonym of clever.
As adjectives the difference between dull and clever
is that dull is lacking the ability to cut easily; not sharp while clever is nimble with hands or body; skillful; adept.As a verb dull
is to render dull; to remove or blunt an edge or something that was sharp.dull
English
Alternative forms
* dul, dulleAdjective
(er)citation, passage=She paused and took a defiant breath. ‘If you don't believe me, I can't help it. But I'm not a liar.’ ¶ ‘No,’ said Luke, grinning at her. ‘You're not dull enough! […] What about the kid's clothes? I don't suppose they were anything to write home about, but didn't you keep anything? A bootee or a bit of embroidery or anything at all?’}}
The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=[…] St.?Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.}}
- Pressing on the bruise produces a dull pain.
Synonyms
* See also * See also * (not shiny) lackluster, matteAntonyms
* bright * intelligent * sharpVerb
(en verb)- Years of misuse have dulled the tools.
- This dulled their swords.
- He drinks to dull the pain.
- Those [drugs] she has / Will stupefy and dull the sense a while.
- Use and custom have so dulled our eyes.
- A razor will dull with use.
- dulls the mirror
External links
* *clever
English
Adjective
(en-adj)- The Highland men, they're clever men / At handling sword and shield,
- The youngest of the three strange lassies was called Molly Whuppie, and she was very clever . She noticed that before they went to bed the giant put straw ropes round her neck and her sisters', and round his own lassies' necks, he put gold chains. So Molly took care and did not fall asleep, but waited till she was sure every one was sleeping sound. Then she slipped out of the bed, and took the straw ropes off her own and her sisters' necks, and took the gold chains off the giant's lassies. She then put the straw ropes on the giant's lassies and the gold on herself and her sisters, and lay down.
Engineers of a different kind, passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers.
page 177,
- has said of Bunyan: “though there were many clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century, there were only two great creative minds. One of these minds produced ‘The Paradise Lost;’ the other, ‘The Pilgrim's Progress.’”
- I would have sent Alyosha, but what use is Alyosha in a thing like that? I send you just because you are a clever fellow. Do you suppose I don't see that? You know nothing about timber, but you've got an eye.
- Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever ; / Do noble things, not dream them all day long: / And so make life, death, and that vast forever / One grand, sweet song.
- Mr. Woodhouse was almost as much interested in the business as the girls, and tried very often to recollect something worth their putting in. "So many clever riddles as there used to be when he was young--he wondered he could not remember them! but he hoped he should in time." And it always ended in "Kitty, a fair but frozen maid."
- I felt they expected me to say clever things, and I never could think of any till after the party was over.
Aston Villa 1-0 Newcastle, passage=Just before the break Villa were denied a second goal when Bent had the ball in the net, although he was ruled offside after Jean Makoun's clever pass.}}
Ron Charles
David Grand’s ‘Mount Terminus’, passage=The Rosenbloom Loop is a clever' little device, but it’s an even more ' clever symbol of the role that discipline plays in the creation of illusion: the persistence of vision that makes sequential still images appear to move.}}
page 255,
- When a clever man is out hunting and comes across the tracks of, say, a kangaroo, he follows them along and talks to the footprints all the time for the purpose of injecting magic into the animal which made them.
page 330,
- Prior to this, the two women, who were “clever ,” and possessed a certain amount of magical “power,”.
- Fred is the clever fellow or tribal doctor who practises with the Kuku-Yalanji people. The tribal doctor’s work includes curing sickness, finding out the causes of death, predicting the future and making and stopping rain.
- 'Twould sound more clever / To me and to my heirs forever.
- The girl was a tight, clever wench as any was.