dopey
Americanadjective
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stupid; inane.
It was rather dopey of him to lock himself out.
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sluggish or befuddled from or as from the use of narcotics or alcohol.
adjective
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slang silly
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informal half-asleep or in a state of semiconsciousness, as when under the influence of a drug
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of dopey
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.
See Examples For:
I assume Vrabel thinks it’s a dopey move.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 28, 2026
But Stokes' men have been careless, loose and downright dopey.
From BBC ● Dec. 25, 2025
His lead, Pattinson’s Mickey Barnes, is a dopey, instantly lovable voluntary “Expendable,” jettisoned into space to be a human guinea pig who will be pivotal in colonizing a faraway planet.
From Salon ● Mar. 7, 2025
Here, with his dopey expressions fused to a satyr’s body, he makes you nervous the way Malcolm McDowell did after he was reformed in “A Clockwork Orange.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 17, 2023
I should have told her she was kind of missing the point, but I was too dopey and exhausted and disgusted to bother.
From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx
Why did John Krasinski’s character get progressively dopier until he became the kind of clueless dad most often seen in commercials asking his wife how to use a mop?
From Slate ● Jan. 2, 2019
"American Ultra" could be goofier and crazier, both smarter and dopier than it turned out.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2015
With the ghost looming, the petty concerns of the local young-mom cadre look dopier than ever to Bridget, who gradually loses patience with the conventions that rule her narrow world.
From New York Times ● Oct. 24, 2014
The critic Glenn Kenny has posited that "Inception" is really a movie about video gaming, which certainly provides the inspiration for some of its dopier action sequences.
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2010
Alice was also louder and more argumentative, and Norton was dopier, unlikely as that may sound.
From Time Magazine Archive
Charlotte Towner said of her American bully XL Coco: "She's just the sloppiest, dopiest dog I've ever owned. She's great with other people, her only downside is she gets excited when she sees people."
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2023
They’re the dopiest duo ever to have traveled to the past and the future, heaven and hell.
From New York Times ● Mar. 20, 2019
In some respects, the parade is a thermometer calibrated to precisely read the temperature of popular culture at its dopiest.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 21, 2018
Since the days of Frankie and Annette, low-budget filmmakers have understood that the dopiest stories sell, so long as the location's sunny and the characters sincere.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 12, 2018
Say, that was the dopiest bunch of kids I ever saw.
From Shorty McCabe by Wilson, F. Vaux (Francis Vaux)
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.
