Adjective

(en adjective)

Not easily excited to action or passion; calm; sluggish.

* {{quote-book

, year=1873 , author=Jules Verne , title=Around the World in 80 Days , chapter=2 citation , passage=Calm and phlegmatic , with a clear eye, Mr. Fogg seemed a perfect type of that English composure which Angelica Kauffmann has so skilfully represented on canvas.}}

* 2013 , A.O. Scott, “How It Looks to Think: Watch Her,” Rev. of , dir. by Margarethe von Trotta, New York Times 29 May 2013: C1. Print.

Their friendship (immortalized in a splendid volume of letters that has clearly served as one of Ms. von Trotta's sources) is a fascinating study in cultural and temperamental contrast, an impulsive and witty American paired with a steady, phlegmatic German.

(archaic) Abounding in phlegm; as, phlegmatic humors; a phlegmatic constitution.

Generating, causing, or full of phlegm.

* Sir Thomas Browne

cold and phlegmatic habitations

Watery (en).

Adjective

(er)

Lacking the ability to cut easily; not sharp.

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Boring; not exciting or interesting.

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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.

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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.