| Definitions | | dumb |
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verb - To silence.
- 1911 Lindsay Swift William Lloyd Garrison p. 272
- :The paralysis of the Northern conscience, the dumbing of the Northern voice, were coming to an end.
- To make stupid.
- 2003 Angela Calabrese Barton Teaching Science for Social Justice p. 124
- :"I think she's dumbing us down, so we won't be smarter than her.
- To represent as stupid.
- 2004 Stephen Oppenheimer The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa p. 107
- :Bad-mouthing Neanderthals ... is symptomatic of a need to exclude and even demonize .... I suggest that the unproven dumbing of the Neanderthals is an example of the same cultural preconception ....
- To reduce the intellectual demands of.
- 2002 Deborah Meier In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning in an Era of Testing p. 126
- :The ensuing storm caused the department to lower the bar " amid protests that this was dumbing the test down " so that only 80 percent of urban kids would fail. ...
adjective (dumber, dumbest)
- Unable to speak; lacking power of speech.
- His younger brother was born , and communicated with a self-taught kind of sign language.
- (context, informal, pejorative) Describing something, especially a person, that is extremely stupid.
- You oaf, you can't fix an engine by hitting it with a hammer!
- (informal) Describing something unintellectual.
- Harry had the , brainless job of moving boxes from one conveyor belt to another.
- (figurative) pointless, Pointless, or serving to create more problems than it solves.
- This is ! We're just driving in circles! We ought to have asked for directions an hour ago!
Etymology: From the Old English word dumb, meaning silent, mute, unable to speak. Cognate with the Old Norse word dumbr. The senses of stupid, unintellectual, and pointless were established under the influence of the German word dumm.
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Full Definition of dumb
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