Duffer vs Dumb - What's the difference?
duffer | dumb |
(duff)
(informal) An incompetent or clumsy person.
*1899 ,
*:Besides, I was anxious to take the wheel, the man in pink pyjamas showing himself a hopeless duffer at the business.
(sports) A player having little skill, especially a golfer who duffs.
(archaic) A pedlar or hawker, especially one selling cheap or substandard goods.
(archaic) Cheap or substandard goods sold by a duffer .
A cow that does not produce milk.
* 1908 , Proceedings of the Agricultural Society of Trinidad and Tobago , Volume 8,
* 1934''', Victorian Department of Agriculture, ''Journal of Agriculture , Volume 32,
(Australia, dated) A cattle thief; one who alters the brands of cattle.
* 2004 , Deborah Bird Rose, Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation ,
* 2010 , Evan McHugh, The Drovers
* 2011 , Clancy Tucker, Gunnedah Hero ,
(label) Unable to speak; lacking power of speech.
* Hooker
(label) Silent; unaccompanied by words.
* Shakespeare
*
* J. C. Shairp
extremely stupid.
(label) Pointless, foolish, lacking intellectual content or value.
Lacking brightness or clearness, as a colour.
* De Foe
To silence.
* 1911 , Lindsay Swift, William Lloyd Garrison , p. 272,
To make stupid.
* 2003 , Angela Calabrese Barton, Teaching Science for Social Justice , p. 124,
To represent as stupid.
* 2004 , Stephen Oppenheimer, The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa , p. 107,
To reduce the intellectual demands of.
* 2002 , Deborah Meier, In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning in an Era of Testing , p. 126,
As adjectives the difference between duffer and dumb
is that duffer is comparative of duff while dumb is unable to speak; lacking power of speech.As a noun duffer
is an incompetent or clumsy person.As a verb dumb is
to silence.duffer
English
Adjective
(head)Noun
(en noun)page 116,
- We have some good cows in this State, but, unfortunately, we have too many duffer cows that are not only being fed and milked at a loss hut are eating up a portion of the profit of the good cow which is being milked alongside them.
page 293,
- The truth is that cattlemen love a typical cow for her beauty and symmetry of form ; but every herd-testing dairyman knows that an ugly animal may be a good producer, while many a beautiful cow is a duffer .
page 112,
- Judy was an associate (‘stud’) of a Whitefella cattle duffer named Brigalow Bill (aka WJJ Ward).
- In the mid-1860s a duffer' named James Harnell, who went by the nickname Narran Jim, had taken stock he?d stolen from the district around Culgoa and Narran rivers across Queensland to the Cooper.An alert Bulloo Downs stockman contacted the police, and when Police Inspector Fitzgerald and eight Aboriginal troopers tracked Narran Jim and surrounded him while he was sleeping, the cattle ' duffer woke to find himself looking down the barrel of Fitzgerald?s revolver and seven years in jail.
unnumbered page,
- The cattle duffer ?s escape would have been impeded by those young ones. Calves can be unruly unless you move them carefully in the company of their mothers.
Synonyms
* See alsoAnagrams
*dumb
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) dumb, from (etyl) . In ordinary spoken English, a phrase like "He is dumb" is interpreted as "He is stupid" rather than "He lacks the power of speech". The latter example, however, is the original sense of the word. The senses of stupid'', ''unintellectual'', and ''pointless developed under the influence of the (etyl) word dumm.Adjective
(er)- to unloose the very tongues even of dumb creatures
- dumb show
- This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
- to pierce into the dumb past
- You are so dumb ! You don't even know how to make toast!
- This is dumb ! We're driving in circles! We should have asked for directions an hour ago!
- Brendan had the dumb job of moving boxes from one conveyor belt to another.
- Her stern was painted of a dumb white or dun color.
Synonyms
* (unable to speak) dumbstruck, mute, speechless, wordless * (stupid) feeble-minded, idiotic, moronic, stupid * banal, brainless, dopey, silly, stupid, ridiculous, vulgarDerived terms
* dumb as a box of rocks * dumben * dumbhood * dummy * dumbnessEtymology 2
From (etyl) dumbien, from (etyl) dumbian (more commonly in compound .Verb
(en verb)- The paralysis of the Northern conscience, the dumbing of the Northern voice, were coming to an end.
- I think she's dumbing us down, so we won't be smarter than her.
- Bad-mouthing Neanderthals . . . is symptomatic of a need to exclude and even demonize. . . . I suggest that the unproven dumbing of the Neanderthals is an example of the same cultural preconception.
- The ensuing storm caused the department to lower the bar—amid protests that this was dumbing the test down—so that only 80 percent of urban kids would fail.