What's the difference between dull and grim?

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.

Grim


Definition:

  • (Compar.) Of forbidding or fear-inspiring aspect; fierce; stern; surly; cruel; frightful; horrible.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This is the grim Fury on a rainy winter morning in Cannes.
  • (2) The level of prescribing of opioid painkillers – Percocet in Geni’s case – has soared, and with it the incidence of addiction, and addiction’s grim best friend: fatal overdoses.
  • (3) Patients with anti-NC1 antibodies were characterised by linear immune deposits along the glomerular basement membrane and the clinical outcome was invariably grim.
  • (4) The Mail branded the deal "a grim day for all who value freedom" and, like the Times, accused David Cameron of crossing the Rubicon and threatening press freedom for the first time since newspapers were licensed in the 17th century.
  • (5) ARD TV showing grim-faced FDP cadres: could this be the first time they fall out of national parliament in 60 years?
  • (6) It has said a better productivity performance and rising North Sea oil revenues will make the budgetary position less grim.
  • (7) Shields accepted that the Irish appeared more inclined to send up their grim fiscal situation than go out and riot.
  • (8) Inside the Islamic State ‘capital’: no end in sight to its grim rule Read more The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia and an alliance of rebels known as the “Euphrates Volcano” – backed US-led coalition air strikes – have seized swaths of territory from Isis, including the strategic border town of Tal Abyad .
  • (9) Yet, if that flurry of form pepped optimism, the injuries and displays in recent friendlies have provided a grim reality check.
  • (10) The dark, luxury air in the silent bedrooms of empty riverside apartments, their identical curving blocks clustered in threes and fours, grim and silent as gill slits, will be theirs.
  • (11) Chinese media and bloggers published images of three young children in blue school uniforms lying dead on the pavement – a grim echo of the high casualty rate at poorly constructed schools in Sichuan in 2008, when a bigger quake killed 87,000 people.
  • (12) The BCC survey represents a turnround from the end of last year, when it was predicting stagflation – a grim combination of zero growth and inflation.
  • (13) The human rights organisation, which has produced a series of in-depth reports detailing the grim working conditions of many of the 1.5 million migrant labourers engaged in a huge construction boom, said “little has changed in law, policy and practice” since the government promised limited reforms 12 months ago.
  • (14) Carcinoma of unknown histogenesis or primary site is an increasingly recognized syndrome regarded by most physicians as having a grim prognosis.
  • (15) "There are times when a swingeing sentence can act as a deterrent", as the judge at the trial was grimly to pronounce.
  • (16) The footage beamed back from the liberated districts of Ramadi is grim: a ghost town littered with debris and smashed concrete, destroyed storefronts, plumes of smoke, the sound of gunfire piercing the air as Iraqi soldiers speak on camera.
  • (17) It was my shortcomings as coach that caused this result,” said a grim-faced South Korea manager, Hong Myung-bo, who spent most of the post-match press-conference scratching his nose in apparent distress and deflecting comments about whether he would stay on as manager until next year’s Asian Cup.
  • (18) After grim news on the recession, at least one thing should become clearer: going back to where we were is no longer an option.
  • (19) While deplorable and to a degree self-defeating, this insouciant defiance also makes a grim kind of sense, both historically and reinforced by recent events.
  • (20) The entity carries a grim visual prognosis, as all ten eyes initially had no perception of light; improvement to light perception occurred in one instance.