WordWeb Online

1. Lacking in liveliness or animation
   "he was so dull at parties"; "a dull political campaign"; "a large dull impassive man"; "dull days with nothing to do"; "how dull and dreary the world is"; "fell back into one of her dull moods"
   - hebetudinous
    
2. Emitting or reflecting very little light
   "a dull glow"; "dull silver badly in need of a polish"; "a dull sky"
    
3. Being or made softer or less loud or clear
   "the dull boom of distant breaking waves"
   - muffled, muted, softened
    
4. So lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness
   "a dull play"; "his competent but dull performance"
   - boring, deadening, ho-hum, irksome, slow, tedious, tiresome, wearisome, unamusing, draggy
    
5. (of colour) very low in saturation; highly diluted
   "dull greens and blues"
    
6. Not keenly felt
   "a dull throbbing"; "dull pain"
    
7. Slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity
   "although dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick"
   - dense, dim, dumb, obtuse, slow
    
8. (of business) not active or brisk
   "business is dull"
   - slow, sluggish
    
9. Not having a sharp edge or point
   "the knife was too dull to be of any use"
    
10. Blunted in responsiveness or sensibility
    "a dull gaze"; "so exhausted she was dull to what went on about her"
     
11. Not clear and resonant; sounding as if striking with or against something relatively soft
    "the dull thud"
    - thudding
     
12. Darkened with overcast
    "a dull sky"
    - leaden

1. Make dull in appearance
   "Age had dulled the surface"
    
2. Become dull or lusterless in appearance; lose shine or brightness
   "the varnished table top dulled with time"
    
3. Deaden (a sound or noise), especially by wrapping
   - muffle, mute, damp, dampen, tone down
    
4. Make numb or insensitive
   - numb, benumb, blunt
    
5. Make dull or blunt
   "Too much cutting dulls the knife's edge"
   - blunt
    
6. Become less interesting or attractive
   - pall
    
7. Make less lively or vigorous
   "Middle age dulled her appetite for travel"

Derived forms: dulled, duller, dullest, dulling, dulls

See also: arid, blunt, blunted, bovine, brightness, brightness level, cloudy, colorless [US], colourless [Brit, Cdn], deadened, desiccate, desiccated, drab, dreary, dullard, dulled, dullness, dully, edgeless, flat, heavy, humdrum, inactive, insensitive, lackluster [US], lacklustre [Brit, Cdn], leaden, light, luminance, luminosity, luminousness, lusterless [N. Amer], lustreless [Brit, Cdn], mat, matt, matte, matted, monotonous, monotonousness, nonresonant, soft, spiritless, stupid, subdued, unanimated, uninteresting, unpolished, unreverberant, unsaturated, unsharpened

Type of: alter, change, desensitise [Brit], desensitize, modify, soften, weaken

Antonym: bright, lively, sharp, sharpen

Encyclopedia: Dull Dull, Perth & Kinross Dull, Perth and Kinross