obtuseness
Americannoun
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lack of quickness, alertness, or sensitivity in perception, intellect, or feeling, often arising from conscious or unconscious resistance.
What I find very tiresome is your willful obtuseness—your refusal to admit facts that are well-known or arguments you have lost.
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the quality or degree of bluntness in physical form; lack of sharpness or acuteness.
Platybasia is an abnormal obtuseness of the basal angle of the brain.
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the fact or quality of being indistinctly felt or perceived, as pain or sound.
The chief indication of deep-seated, pervasive inflammation seems to be the obtuseness of the pain.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of obtuseness
First recorded in 1640–50; obtuse ( def. ) + -ness ( def. )
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.
Obtuseness to the beauty and meaning of Nature sinks us to the level of the brutes.
From Practical Ethics by Hyde, William De Witt
Obtuseness was not a defect with which Adelaide had much patience.
From The Happiest Time of Their Lives by Miller, Alice Duer
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.
