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.
Mortensen, as a bereaved sheriff named Holger Olsen, appears skeptical when a town dullard stands accused of six murders and apparently claimed not to remember any of them.
From New York Times • May 30, 2024
It's a world, for the most part, beyond the grasp of dullard officials.
From BBC • Jun. 2, 2023
Burwell focused on Farrell’s character, Pádraic, a farmer characterized by his friend as a dullard.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 17, 2022
Neanderthals were, she writes, “not dullard losers on a withered branch of the family tree, but enormously adaptable and even successful ancient relatives”.
From Nature • Aug. 17, 2020
Rekh would think him a dullard, unfit to learn the goldsmith’s trade.
From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
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.
