dullard
/'dʌləd/
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Noun:
- A person who is boring or uninteresting: A dullard is someone whose personality, conversation, or presence fails to engage others and tends to evoke feelings of boredom.
- A person who is slow to understand; a stupid person: A dullard is someone perceived as lacking intelligence, brightness, or quickness of mind.
Usage Examples
- Noun:
- He was considered a dullard at parties because he only talked about accounting spreadsheets.
- The teacher grew frustrated, mistakenly thinking the quiet student was a dullard.
Advanced Usage
- The term is often used in a derogatory or critical manner to describe someone's perceived intellectual or social shortcomings. It is more common in literary or formal criticism than in everyday casual speech.
- It can be used in character descriptions within narratives to quickly establish a trait of boredom or lack of intelligence.
Variants and Related Words
- Dull (adj): Lacking interest or excitement; not sharp or intense. This is the adjective form from which "dullard" is derived.
- The lecture was incredibly dull.
- Dullness (n): The state or quality of being dull.
- The dullness of the meeting was unbearable.
Synonyms
- Bore: A person who causes others to feel weary and uninterested.
- Dunce: A person who is slow to learn or stupid (often with a historical context of schoolroom punishment).
- Simpleton: A person lacking in common sense or intelligence.
Antonyms
- Wit: A person skilled in using words and ideas in a quick and inventive way to create humor.
- Genius: A person with exceptional intellectual or creative power.
- Charmer: A person with a fascinating or appealing personality.
Related Idioms and Phrases
- While "dullard" itself is not typically part of a common idiom, it relates to the concept expressed in phrases like:
- "As dull as dishwater": Extremely boring or uninteresting.
- His presentation was as dull as dishwater.
Noun
- a person who evokes boredom
- a person who is not very bright
- The economy, stupid!