mind-numbing
Britishadjective
Other Word Forms
Explanation
When something is especially dull, it makes us feel like our brains have stopped working — it's mind-numbing. If you've had to listen to a lo-o-o-ong, bo-o-o-oring lecture, you already understand what mind-numbing means. Mind-numbing describes something that is so boring and uninteresting that it turns your brain into useless mush. The word was first recorded in 1898, but of course, people were experiencing boring work and dull teachers for a very long time before that. Even the Ancient Greeks must have been bored every now and then — but, unlike you, they didn't have this word to describe just how bored they were.
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.
While these types of exhibitions are often an exercise in hunting for an aesthetic needle in a mind-numbing haystack, the quality here is surprisingly consistent with happy discoveries around almost every corner.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 27, 2026
The campaign for changes to the building code, the rules that specify in mind-numbing detail exactly how buildings must be constructed, appears to be the next chapter of this fight.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 23, 2025
Freddie Freeman slammed a walk-off homer to lead off the bottom of the 18th, putting the finishing touch on one of the weirdest, wackiest, most mind-numbing contests ever staged in the Fall Classic.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 28, 2025
Nearly all of this summer’s controversies have been mind-numbing in many ways, perhaps none more so than the reactions to American Eagle’s “good jeans” ad featuring Sydney Sweeney.
From Salon • Aug. 6, 2025
Working at the Dollar Store was mind-numbing and humbling work.
From "Proud" by Ibtihaj Muhammad
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.
