obtuseness
Americannoun
-
lack of quickness, alertness, or sensitivity in perception, intellect, or feeling, often arising from conscious or unconscious resistance.
What I find very tiresome is your willful obtuseness—your refusal to admit facts that are well-known or arguments you have lost.
-
the quality or degree of bluntness in physical form; lack of sharpness or acuteness.
Platybasia is an abnormal obtuseness of the basal angle of the brain.
-
the fact or quality of being indistinctly felt or perceived, as pain or sound.
The chief indication of deep-seated, pervasive inflammation seems to be the obtuseness of the pain.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of obtuseness
First recorded in 1640–50; obtuse ( def. ) + -ness ( def. )
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.
He plays the victim vividly and is quite adept at showing the obtuseness of a know-it-all.
From Los Angeles Times • May 9, 2024
One of the great Twitter accounts documenting this is called VCs Congratulating Themselves—a collection of venture capitalists posting with mind-blowing obtuseness.
From Slate • Nov. 10, 2023
Anxiety and depression are endemic, psychologists tell us, and why wouldn’t they be, when optimism and cheerfulness are taken as signs of obtuseness?
From Washington Post • Mar. 31, 2023
Howard longs to be close to Momo, and, in his emotional obtuseness, can’t grasp what the impediment is.
From New York Times • Nov. 10, 2022
I had never encountered such obtuseness in a first-class hotel, and I told them so, but this only increased their inhospitality.
From "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin
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.
