dopey
Americanadjective
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stupid; inane.
It was rather dopey of him to lock himself out.
-
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:
Or do we just revert to whining about our dopey NFL fantasy teams?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
As heroines Brenda and Cindy, respectively, Hall and Faris were daffy, dopey and committed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026
But Stokes' men have been careless, loose and downright dopey.
From BBC ● Dec. 25, 2025
Emerson sometimes feels as if the Kings are testing him: “Can we make it so dopey that Emerson won’t do it? But I’ve defeated them.”
From New York Times ● May 20, 2024
Most victims of hypothermia die in a much more dopey kind of way, in temperate seasons and with the air temperature nowhere near freezing.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
What it does have time for often feels less than vital: earnest exposition, wall-rattling fisticuffs and comic asides that prove dopier, but also sweeter, than those glib Whedon one-liners.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 15, 2021
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
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
Enough time has elapsed for even the dopiest to see the threat.
From Economist ● Jan. 3, 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.
