What's the difference between acute and dull?

Acute


Definition:

  • (a.) Sharp at the end; ending in a sharp point; pointed; -- opposed to blunt or obtuse; as, an acute angle; an acute leaf.
  • (a.) Having nice discernment; perceiving or using minute distinctions; penetrating; clever; shrewd; -- opposed to dull or stupid; as, an acute observer; acute remarks, or reasoning.
  • (a.) Having nice or quick sensibility; susceptible to slight impressions; acting keenly on the senses; sharp; keen; intense; as, a man of acute eyesight, hearing, or feeling; acute pain or pleasure.
  • (a.) High, or shrill, in respect to some other sound; -- opposed to grave or low; as, an acute tone or accent.
  • (a.) Attended with symptoms of some degree of severity, and coming speedily to a crisis; -- opposed to chronic; as, an acute disease.
  • (v. t.) To give an acute sound to; as, he acutes his rising inflection too much.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In January 2011, the Nobel peace prize laureate was admitted to a Johannesburg hospital for what officials initially described as tests but what turned out to be an acute respiratory infection .
  • (2) It is concluded that acute renal denervation augments the pressure diuresis that follows carotid occlusion.
  • (3) Ethanol and L-ethionine induce acute steatosis without necrosis, whereas azaserine, carbon tetrachloride, and D-galactosamine are known to produce steatosis with varying degrees of hepatic necrosis.
  • (4) IgE-mediated acute systemic reactions to penicillin continue to be an important clinical problem.
  • (5) The cumulative incidence of grade II and III acute GVHD in the 'low dose' cyclosporin group was 42% compared to 51% in the 'standard dose' group (P = 0.60).
  • (6) A 66-year-old woman with acute idiopathic polyneuritis (Landry-Guillain-Barré [LGB] syndrome) had normal extraocular movements, but her pupils did not react to light or accommodation.
  • (7) After a period on fat-rich diet the patient's physical fitness was increased and the recovery period after the acute load was shorter.
  • (8) It was concluded that metoclopramide and dexamethasone showed an excellent antiemetic effect on acute drug-induced emesis, as well as on delayed emesis, induced by cisplatin.
  • (9) The results suggest that RPE cannot be used reliably as a surrogate for direct pulse measurement in exercise training of persons with acute dysvascular amputations.
  • (10) Statistically significant differences were found mainly in the randomized trial, where during the first and second years, respectively, adenoidectomy subjects had 47% and 37% less time with otitis media than control subjects and 28% and 35% fewer suppurative (acute) episodes than control subjects.
  • (11) Tumour necrosis factor (TNF), a polypeptide produced by mononuclear phagocytes, has been implicated as an important mediator of inflammatory processes and of clinical manifestations in acute infectious diseases.
  • (12) During the procedure, acute respiratory failure developed as a result of tracheal obstruction.
  • (13) Four patients with acute brucellosis are described, none of whom had any connexion with farming or milk industry, the source of infection being different in each case.
  • (14) The leukemic T-cells in two patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) had specific features of large granular lymphocytes (LGL), and those in two patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) had L2 morphologic characteristics.
  • (15) The acute effect of alcohol manifested itself by decreasing mitochondrial respiration, compensated by increased glycolytic activity of the myocardium so that myocardial energy phosphate concentration remained unchanged.
  • (16) The introduction of intravenous, high-dose thrombolytic therapy during a brief period has markedly reduced mortality of patients with acute myocardial infarction.
  • (17) The younger patients more often experienced an acute arthritis with sacroiliitis resembling a reactive disease.
  • (18) All five individuals appeared to have acute C. pneumoniae infection as determined by results of serologic tests (titers of IgM antibody for all individuals were greater than or equal to 1:16).
  • (19) The results clearly show that the acute hyperthermia of unrestrained rats induced by either peripheral or central injections of morphine is not caused by activation of the pituitary-adrenal axis.
  • (20) The effect of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and the combination of both on acute and chronic myocardial ischemia were evaluated in a total of 30 male rabbits.

Dull


Definition:

  • (superl.) Slow of understanding; wanting readiness of apprehension; stupid; doltish; blockish.
  • (superl.) Slow in action; sluggish; unready; awkward.
  • (superl.) Insensible; unfeeling.
  • (superl.) Not keen in edge or point; lacking sharpness; blunt.
  • (superl.) Not bright or clear to the eye; wanting in liveliness of color or luster; not vivid; obscure; dim; as, a dull fire or lamp; a dull red or yellow; a dull mirror.
  • (superl.) Heavy; gross; cloggy; insensible; spiritless; lifeless; inert.
  • (superl.) Furnishing little delight, spirit, or variety; uninteresting; tedious; cheerless; gloomy; melancholy; depressing; as, a dull story or sermon; a dull occupation or period; hence, cloudy; overcast; as, a dull day.
  • (v. t.) To deprive of sharpness of edge or point.
  • (v. t.) To make dull, stupid, or sluggish; to stupefy, as the senses, the feelings, the perceptions, and the like.
  • (v. t.) To render dim or obscure; to sully; to tarnish.
  • (v. t.) To deprive of liveliness or activity; to render heavy; to make inert; to depress; to weary; to sadden.
  • (v. i.) To become dull or stupid.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "Maybe dullness is associated with psychic pain," Wallace wrote at one point, "because something that's dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other, deeper type of pain that is always there, if only in an ambient low-level way, and which most of us spend nearly all our time and energy trying to distract ourselves from."
  • (2) Similar systems were put in place at Dulles outside Washington DC, Newark and Chicago airports on Thursday.
  • (3) The soft, dull, malacic appearance of the center results from lack of a true surface layer of tangential collagen fibers.
  • (4) Here I am in Los Angeles being paid $30,000 to do next to nothing and still I'm finding life rather dull.
  • (5) A significant proportion of splenic B cells reacted with these mAb, although lower number (one-log less) than peritoneal B cells and a small proportion of H7dull+ splenic B cells seems to be Ly-1(CD5)dull+, 1 of 200 splenic B cells responded to IL-5 for IgM production.
  • (6) A 58-year-old man complained of dull left lower quadrant pain and constipation.
  • (7) They will begin next week at Liberty airport in Newark, New Jersey; Dulles, outside Washington DC; Chicago O’Hare, and Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta.
  • (8) At both observations, crowns were rated on 5-point Likert scales for outline form, porosity, smoothness, reflectance, texture, dullness, defects, and general esthetic appearances.
  • (9) On the other hand AMH2 showed the dull-positive reaction with some monocytes and pleural exudate cells among above-mentioned cells.
  • (10) Britain’s Got Talent review – Simon Cowell is looking like Caligula after a dull day at the Coliseum Read more The show, won last year by boy band Collabro, began eight years ago with 4.9 million viewers, rising to 8.8 million for its second series launch before hitting the 10 million mark for the first time in 2009 with 10.3 million.
  • (11) Disseminated annular psoriasiform lesions developed over a period of 2 months in a 48-year-old man with no preceding psoriatic history of drug intake, being accompanied by general dullness and arthralgia.
  • (12) 3) At the severe stage, pain and dullness at the back, numbness at arms and hands, hand coldness, sleep disturbance etc.
  • (13) One month after surgery, she complained of swelling and a dull pain in the right leg without cardiorespiratory symptoms.
  • (14) Black-hair follicular dysplasia in dogs of mixed breeding was delineated by hypotrichosis and dullness of most black regions of the coat.
  • (15) Endoscopic examination disclosed an almost roundish, smooth-surfaced, flat and dull red area corresponding to IIc (slightly depressed type).
  • (16) Their surface phenotype was Thy-1+(dull), Ly-1.2+(dull), Lyt-2-, L3T4-, 9F3+, and 3A1+, which is consistent with that found in intact lpr mice.
  • (17) The engines, gearboxes and even the doors now have a complexity that sees them constructed elsewhere, but the transformation on this line of the dull sheen of aluminium parts into a moving vehicle at the other end is still something to behold.
  • (18) Flow cytometry showed three types of trophozoite staining by mAb: (i) bright staining of greater than 90% of trophozoites, with aggregation of the organisms; (ii) bright staining of approximately 90% of trophozoites, with little or no aggregation; (iii) dull staining of approximately 20% of trophozoites, without aggregation.
  • (19) The percentage of dull CD8+CD11b+ cells (natural killer cells) among TG-2 cells was lower than that in peripheral blood, but there was no significant difference in bright CD8+CD11b+ cells (suppressor-effector T cells) between thyroid glands and peripheral blood.
  • (20) It was filed in my mind as a pretty but dull destination, full of pensioners on package deals and cruises.