Dull vs Commonplace - What's the difference?

Dull is a related term of commonplace.

As adjectives the difference between dull and commonplace

is that dull is lacking the ability to cut easily; not sharp while commonplace is ordinary; having no remarkable characteristics.

As verbs the difference between dull and commonplace

is that dull is to render dull; to remove or blunt an edge or something that was sharp while commonplace is to make a commonplace book.

As a noun commonplace is

a platitude or.

dull

English

Alternative forms

* dul, dulle

Adjective

(er)

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 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?’}}
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= 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.}}
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.

Pressing on the bruise produces a dull pain.

Synonyms

* See also * See also * (not shiny) lackluster, matte

Antonyms

* bright * intelligent * sharp

Verb

(en verb)
To render dull; to remove or blunt an edge or something that was sharp.

Years of misuse have dulled the tools.

* Francis Bacon

This dulled their swords.

To soften, moderate or blunt; to make dull, stupid, or sluggish; to stupefy.

He drinks to dull the pain.

* Shakespeare

Those [drugs] she has / Will stupefy and dull the sense a while.

* Trench

Use and custom have so dulled our eyes.

To lose a sharp edge; to become dull.

A razor will dull with use.

To render dim or obscure; to sully; to tarnish.

* Francis Bacon

dulls the mirror

External links

* *

commonplace
English

Adjective
(en adjective)
Ordinary; having no remarkable characteristics.

* 1824 , Sir (Walter Scott), , ch. 7:

"This Mr. Tyrrel," she said, in a tone of authoritative decision, "seems after all a very ordinary sort of person, quite a commonplace man."

*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned.}}
* 1911 , (w), (Under Western Eyes) , ch. 1:

I could get hold of nothing but of some commonplace phrases, those futile phrases that give the measure of our impotence before each other's trials.

Synonyms
* routine * undistinguished * unexceptional * See also
Antonyms
* distinguished * inimitable * unique
Noun
(en noun)
A platitude or .

* 1899 , , Active Service , ch. 17:

Finally he began to mutter some commonplaces which meant nothing particularly.

* 1910 , , His Hour , ch. 4:

And something angered Tamara in the way the Prince assisted in all this, out-commonplacing her friend in commonplaces with the suavest politeness.

Something that is ordinary.

* 1891 , , "A Case of Identity" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes :

"My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence."

A memorandum; something to be frequently consulted or referred to.

* Jonathan Swift

Whatever, in my reading, occurs concerning this our fellow creature, I do never fail to set it down by way of commonplace .

A commonplace book.

Verb
(commonplac)
To make a commonplace book.

To enter in a commonplace book, or to reduce to general heads.

* Felton

I do not apprehend any difficulty in collecting and commonplacing an universal history from the historians.

(obsolete) To utter commonplaces; to indulge in platitudes.

* 1910 , , His Hour , ch. 4:

And something angered Tamara in the way the Prince assisted in all this, out-commonplacing her friend in commonplaces with the suavest politeness.

(Francis Bacon)

Related terms
* commonplace book English calques