boredom
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of boredom
Explanation
Boredom can make you do crazy things, like watching terrible old game shows on television or eating the bag of chocolate chips you find in the freezer. The feeling of being bored or uninterested in what you're doing is boredom. Everyone experiences boredom sometimes. The feeling that nothing catches your interest, that everything's dull and flat, sums up the state of boredom. Too much time on your hands can result in boredom, and so can the tediousness of doing the same thing over and over again, like a dreary task at a job. The word boredom comes from something called a "boring tool", a kind of drill that works slowly and repetitively; around 1768, bore, meaning "be tiresome," became a popular slang term, and boredom followed.
Vocabulary lists containing boredom
"Play Ball!"
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-dom and -hood
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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.
One experiment found people had warmer, more engaged interactions with robots that made social flubs, including “judgmental mistakes, wrong assumptions, expressing tiredness or boredom, or getting overexcited.”
From Slate ● Sep. 27, 2026
They experience the ups and downs of combat together, along with its boredom, monotony and loneliness.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026
Other people might call it complacency or boredom.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
Kudler says the isolation of being aboard a ship, with moments of prolonged boredom followed by "extreme alertness", can amplify mental-health struggles.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
Three years into a thirty-year sentence, the Soviet spy battled boredom and loneliness with letters to his wife and daughter, crossword puzzles, and chess in the prison yard.
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
