dullard
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of dullard
late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50; see origin at dull, -ard
Explanation
If something isn’t sharp, it’s dull. This can apply to pencils and people — if you’re sharp, you’re a smarty-pants, but if you’re dull, you’re a dullard. It even sounds kind of dumb, dullard. Dullard is an old-fashioned word for a dumb person. If you have to explain to someone how to sit in a chair, you’re probably talking to a dullard (or a toddler). It's rude to call someone a dullard, but we all feel like dullards sometimes, especially when we make mistakes or can't understand something.
Vocabulary lists containing dullard
"Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
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The Serpent King
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In a Senate full of ambitious members, Colorado Republican Wayne Allard is so bland that his critics have dubbed him "Dullard."
From Time Magazine Archive
Dullard and fool you must be, Dwight Pollard, or else you have never known me.
From The Mill Mystery by Green, Anna Katharine
After some hard exchanges they closed, and fell, the Dullard underneath.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 by Burnand, F. C. (Francis Cowley), Sir
Dullard as you must esteem Kurwenal, this time you shall not chide him.
From The Wagnerian Romances by Brownell, Gertrude Hall
Dullard must he be who sees not abundance here to interest him.
From Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; or, Eighteen Months in the Polar Regions, in Search of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, in the Years 1850-51 by Osborn, Sherard
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
