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He sat through the dull lecture and barely stayed awake.
1895, S. R. Crockett, A Cry Across the Black Water:
"You are very dull this morning, Sheriff," said the youngest daughter of the house, who, being the baby and pretty, had grown pettishly privileged in speech.
2012, Winston S. Churchill, Martin Gilbert, Churchill: The Power of Words, page 14:
But there we were given only the dullest, driest, pemmicanised forms like The Student's Hume, Once I had a hundred pages of The Student's Hume as a holiday task.
Not shiny; having a matte finish or no particular luster or brightness.
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.
1959, Robert Adams Wilson, Bird Islands of New Zealand, page 67:
The young bird had the plumage of the saddleback, not the even chestnut of the jackbird, although its plumage was rather duller than that of the adult.
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?’
[…] 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.
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dull (third-person singular simple presentdulls, present participledulling, simple past and past participledulled)
(transitive) To render dull; to remove or blunt an edge or something that was sharp.
Years of misuse have dulled the tools.
a.1627 (date written), Francis , “Considerations Touching a VVarre vvith Spaine.”, in William Rawley, editor, Certaine Miscellany VVorks of the Right Honourable Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount S. Alban., London: I. Hauiland for Humphrey Robinson,, published 1629, →OCLC:
Morris Jones traces this from Proto-Indo-European*deyḱ-(“to show, point out”) via a formation *doix-sl-,[1] but Russell instead derives this from *to-ud-lom.[2]
1938, John Pierce, “foreword”, in Dan Lenni'r Nos [Under Cover of Night], Liverpool: Gwasg y Brython, page 5:
Gan i'r dull a gymerais o'r blaen, o gyrraedd amrywiol ddosbarthiadau o ddarllenwyr, ei gymeradwyo ei hun i gynifer, glynais wrtho, a rhoi cyfieithiadau a ffurfiau llenyddol ar waelod y tudalennau.
As the method I had taken before, of reaching various classes of readers, appealed to so many, I stuck to it, and put translations and learned forms at the bottom of the pages.
^ Russell, Paul (1988) “The Celtic Preverb USS and Related Matters”, in Ériu, volume 39, Royal Irish Academy, →ISSN, →JSTOR, pages 95–126
Further reading
R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “dull”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies