What's the difference between dull and engaging?

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.

Engaging


Definition:

  • (p. pr. & vb. n.) of Encage
  • (p. pr. & vb. n.) of Engage
  • (a.) Tending to draw the attention or affections; attractive; as, engaging manners or address.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This finding is of major importance for persons treated with diltiazem who engage in sport.
  • (2) "But we develop a picture of someone from their previous engagements with us.
  • (3) In this study we were engaged on the pharmacokinetics of fosfestrol (Honvan) after oral administration.
  • (4) It is also a clear sign of our willingness and determination to step up engagement across the whole range of the EU-Turkey relationship to fully reflect the strategic importance of our relations.
  • (5) Nice (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) has also published new guidance on good patient experience that provides a strong framework on which to build good engagement practice.
  • (6) A man wearing a badge that says "property team" quietly parries some of her points, but chooses not to engage with others.
  • (7) I never had any doubt that the vast majority of people engaged in "business" are not the exploiters but the exploited.
  • (8) The need here is to promote the development of genuinely participative models – citizens panels and juries, patient and community leaders, participatory budgeting, and harnessing the power of digital engagement.
  • (9) Engagement in reminiscing may be stable during old age or may follow a developmental course.
  • (10) Using allozymes as the genetic probe, data are presented which show that wild Drosophila buzzatii females and males engaged in copulation mate at random.
  • (11) "This will obviously be a sensitive topic for the US administration, but partners in the transatlantic alliance must be clear on common rules of engagement in times of conflict if we are to retain any moral standing in the world," Verhofstadt said.
  • (12) Enright said: “We call on the home secretary and chair of IICSA [the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse] to engage actively and urgently to find a way forward that secures the confidence of survivors and provides the inquiry’s legal team with the resources and support they need to deliver justice and truth that survivors deserve.” Stein said his clients were “deeply disatisfied” with aspects of how the inquiry had been conducted but called for Emmerson to stay, adding: “I urge the home secretary to seek to find a way in which his valuable contribution can be maintained”.
  • (13) However, the mean serum EPO concentrations of male and female athletes engaged in a variety of sports were not different from those of sedentary control subjects of both sexes (26.5-35.3 U.ml-1).
  • (14) The findings may have a more general significance in relation to the site of engagement between processed antigen and MHC molecules in specialized antigen-presenting cells.
  • (15) These steps signify a willingness for engagement not seen before, but they have been overshadowed by the "nuclear crisis" triggered in October 2002 when Pyongyang admitted to having the "know-how", but not the technology, for a highly enriched uranium route to nuclear weapons.
  • (16) Through cues or precues, attention was directed to one location of a multistimulus visual display and, while attention was so engaged, the identity of a stimulus located at a different position in the display was changed.
  • (17) An Ofsted for universities Read more Too often a commitment to learning and teaching is presented in opposition to engagement with research and scholarship, but the two should be inextricably linked.
  • (18) And he failed to engage with these sensible proposals to limit bonuses to a maximum of a year's salary or double that if explicitly backed by shareholders - proposals which even his own MEPs have backed – until the very last minute.
  • (19) And an increasing number of critics say that no nuclear weapon would be a credible deterrent in any counter-terrorist operation British forces will be engaged in for the foreseeable future.
  • (20) The patient was engaged in the magistraliter preparations of medicaments in a pharmacy.