Innocent vs Dumb - What's the difference?
innocent | dumb |
Free from guilt, sin, or immorality.
* 1606 , , IV. iii. 16:
Bearing no legal responsibility for a wrongful act.
Naive; artless.
* 1600 , , V. ii. 37:
(obsolete) Not harmful; innocuous; harmless.
* Alexander Pope
Having no knowledge (of something).
Lacking (something).
Lawful; permitted.
Not contraband; not subject to forfeiture.
Those who are innocent; young children.
(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 innocent and dumb
is that innocent is (pure, free from sin, untainted)Free from guilt, sin, or immorality while dumb is unable to speak; lacking power of speech.As a noun innocent
is those who are innocent; young children.As a verb dumb is
to silence.innocent
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- to offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb
- I can find out no rhyme to / 'lady' but 'baby' – an innocent rhyme;
- an innocent medicine or remedy
- The spear / Sung innocent , and spent its force in air.
- an innocent trade
- innocent goods carried to a belligerent nation
Synonyms
* (free from blame or guilt) sackless * (free from sin) pure, untainted * See alsoAntonyms
* (bearing no legal responsibility for a wrongful act) guilty, nocentNoun
(en noun)- The slaughter of the innocents was a significant event in the New Testament.
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.