dumb
/dʌm/ adjective, verb, adverb
Forms dumber dumbest dumbs dumbing dumbed
- adjective (dated) Unable to speak; lacking power of speech. “deaf, dumb, and blind”
- adjective (archaic) Not talkative; taciturn or unwilling to speak.
- adjective (dated) Having no input or voice in running things.
- adjective (dated, of things, actions, etc.) Unaccompanied by words or speech, silent, wordless. “dumb show”
- adjective (dated) Not producing any sound, silent.
- adjective (informal, derogatory, especially of a person) Stupid. “You are so dumb! You don't even know how to make toast!”
- adjective (figuratively) Pointless, foolish, lacking intellectual content or value. “This is dumb! We're driving in circles! We should have asked for directions an hour ago!”
- adjective Lacking some functionality or property ordinarily characteristic of its kind.
- verb (transitive, dated) To silence.
- verb (transitive) To make stupid.
- verb (transitive) To represent as stupid.
- verb (transitive) To reduce the intellectual demands of.
- adverb (African-American Vernacular) Very, extremely.
- adjective (African-American Vernacular, dated) An intensifier expressing contempt; damn, damned.
- adjective (mnemonic) An acronym for remembering desirable characteristics for goal-setting: dream-driven, uplifting, method-driven, behavior-driven.
Synonyms
mute speechless wordless feeble-minded idiotic moronic stupid addlebrained addlepated airheaded bee-brained beef-witted soft beefheaded beetle-headed birdbrained blockheaded Boeotian boneheaded boofheaded dense dim dull obtuse slow silent
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English dumb (“silent, speechless, mute, ineffectual”), from Old English dumb (“silent, speechless, mute, unable to speak”), from Proto-West Germanic *dumb, from Proto-Germanic *dumbaz (“dull, dumb”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure”).
The senses of stupid, unintellectual, and pointless, which are found regularly since the 19th century only, probably developed under the influence of German dumm and Dutch dom. Just like the English word, these originally meant "lacking the power of speech", but they developed the mentioned senses early on.
Cognate with Scots dumb (“dumb, silent”), North Frisian dom, domme (“dumb, stupid”), West Frisian dom (“dumb, stupid”), Dutch dom (“dumb, stupid”), German dumm (“dumb, stupid”), Danish dum (“stupid”), Swedish dum (“stupid”), Icelandic dumbur (“dumb, mute”). See also deaf.
From Middle English dumben, from Old English *dumbian (found in the compound ādumbian (“to become mute or dumb; keep silence; hold one’s peace”)), from Proto-Germanic *dumbijaną, *dumbōną (“to be silent, become dumb”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure”). Cognate with German verdummen (“to become dumb”).
A minced oath of damn.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Destitute of the power of speech; unable; to utter articulate sounds; as, the dumb brutes.
- adjective Not willing to speak; mute; silent; not speaking; not accompanied by words; as, dumb show.
- verb To put to silence. [Obs.] Shak.
Etymology [AS. dumb; akin to D. dom stupid, dumb, Sw. dumb, Goth. dumbs; cf. Gr. Deaf, and cf. Dummy.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “dumb”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details