Dull vs Pale - What's the difference?

In transitive terms the difference between dull and pale

is that dull is to soften, moderate or blunt; to make dull, stupid, or sluggish; to stupefy while pale is to make pale; to diminish the brightness of.

In intransitive terms the difference between dull and pale

is that dull is to lose a sharp edge; to become dull while pale is to become insignificant.

As a noun pale is

paleness; pallor.

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

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pale
English

Etymology 1
From (etyl), from (etyl) pale, from (etyl) .
Adjective
(er)
Light in color.

:

*

*:“Heavens!” exclaimed Nina, “the blue-stocking and the fogy!—and yours are'' pale blue, Eileen!—you’re about as self-conscious as Drina—slumping there with your hair tumbling ''à la Mérode! Oh, it's very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is better.”

(lb) Having a pallor (a light color, especially due to sickness, shock, fright etc.).

:

*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=5 citation , passage=Mr. Campion appeared suitably impressed and she warmed to him. He was very easy to talk to with those long clown lines in his pale face, a natural goon, born rather too early she suspected.}}
Verb
(pal)
To turn pale; to lose colour.

* Elizabeth Browning

Apt to pale at a trodden worm.

To become insignificant.

2006' New York Times ''Its financing '''pales next to the tens of billions that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will have at its disposal, ...

* 12 July 2012 , Sam Adams, AV Club Ice Age: Continental Drift

The matter of whether the world needs a fourth Ice Age movie pales beside the question of why there were three before it, but Continental Drift feels less like an extension of a theatrical franchise than an episode of a middling TV cartoon, lolling around on territory that’s already been settled.

To make pale; to diminish the brightness of.

* Shakespeare

The glowworm shows the matin to be near, / And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.

Derived terms
* pale in comparison
Noun

(obsolete) Paleness; pallor.

(Shakespeare)

Etymology 2
From (etyl), from (etyl) pal, from (etyl) .
Noun
(en noun)
A wooden stake; a picket.

* Mortimer

Deer creep through when a pale tumbles down.

(archaic) Fence made from wooden stake; palisade.

* 1615 , Ralph Hamor, A True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia , Richmond 1957, p. 13:

Fourthly, they shall not vpon any occasion whatsoeuer breake downe any of our pales , or come into any of our Townes or forts by any other waies, issues or ports then ordinary [...].

(by extension) Limits, bounds (especially before of).

* Milton

to walk the studious cloister's pale

* 1900 , :

Men so situated, beyond the pale of the honor and the law, are not to be trusted.

* 1919 , B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols, :

All things considered, we advise the male reader to keep his desires in check till he is at least twenty-five, and the female not to enter the pale of wedlock until she has attained the age of twenty.

The bounds of morality, good behaviour or judgment in civilized company, in the phrase beyond the pale .

(heraldiccharge) A vertical band down the middle of a shield.

(archaic) A territory or defensive area within a specific boundary or under a given jurisdiction.

# (historical) The parts of Ireland under English jurisdiction.

# (historical) The territory around (Calais) under English control (from the 14th to 16th centuries).

#* 2009 , (Hilary Mantel), Wolf Hall , Fourth Estate 2010, p. 402:

He knows the fortifications – crumbling – and beyond the city walls the lands of the Pale , its woods, villages and marshes, its sluices, dykes and canals.

#* 2011 , Thomas Penn, Winter King , Penguin 2012, p. 73:

A low-lying, marshy enclave stretching eighteen miles along the coast and pushing some eight to ten miles inland, the Pale of Calais nestled between French Picardy to the west and, to the east, the imperial-dominated territories of Flanders.

# (historical) A portion of Russia in which Jews were permitted to live.

(archaic) The jurisdiction (territorial or otherwise) of an authority.

A cheese scoop.

(Simmonds)

A shore for bracing a timber before it is fastened.

(Spencer)

Verb
(pal)
To enclose with pales, or as if with pales; to encircle or encompass; to fence off.

[Your isle, which stands] ribbed and paled in / With rocks unscalable and roaring waters. — Shakespeare.

Related terms
* impale * palisade * pallescent
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* English terms with multiple etymologies ----