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dullness

noun

Simple meaning

Lack of interest or excitement.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

duhlnuhs

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IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈdʌlnəs

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. Lack of interest or excitement.

  2. Lack of sensibility

    “There was a dullness in his heart.”

  3. A lack of visual brightness

    “The brightness of the orange sky was reflected in the dullness of the orange sea.”

  4. The lack of visual brilliance; want of sheen.

  5. The quality of being slow of understanding things.

  6. of an edge

    Bluntness.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Formality
Technical

More ways to use dullness

  • “There was a dullness in his heart.”noun
  • “The brightness of the orange sky was reflected in the dullness of the orange sea.”noun
  • “The stories were of a dullness to bring a buffalo to its knees.”noun

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mental dullnesscardiac dullnessliver dullnessshifting dullness

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.