What's the difference between dull and leaden?

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.

Leaden


Definition:

  • (a.) Made of lead; of the nature of lead; as, a leaden ball.
  • (a.) Like lead in color, etc. ; as, a leaden sky.
  • (a.) Heavy; dull; sluggish.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) There is a heavy, leaden feeling in your chest, rather as when someone you love dearly has died; but no one has – except, perhaps, you.
  • (2) In ancient Rome and during the Renaissance compression by means of leaden plates was a well-known treatment of cancer.
  • (3) DCMS secretary Maria Miller last week promised to fight for the arts: untouched by loftier values her leaden utilitarianism in calling the arts a "compelling product" came under fire, but she did lay out a good commercial case.
  • (4) There is no way that the show could have been made without it, because otherwise all the action would have been leaden with exposition.
  • (5) The murine dilute suppressor gene, dsu, was previously shown to suppress the dilute coat color phenotypes of mice homozygous for the dilute (d), leaden (ln), and ashen (ash) mutations.
  • (6) Sixty patients with probable atypical depression--defined as meeting Research Diagnostic Criteria for depressive illness, having reactive mood, and having one of four associated symptoms (hyperphagia, hypersomnolence, leaden feeling, and sensitivity to rejection)--took part in a study contrasting phenelzine, imipramine, and placebo.
  • (7) The football was leaden in the first half and, once again, there were times when an impatient crowd struggled to contain their frustrations.
  • (8) The syndrome is characterized by profound dysfunction of the central nervous system, silver-leaden colored hair, abnormal melanosomes and melanocytes, and abnormal inclusion bodies in fibroblasts, bone marrow histiocytes and lymphocytes which appear to represent abnormal lysosomal bodies.
  • (9) In addition, scatter radiation exposure of the head decreased by 54% by covering the patient with a rubber leaden blanket (0.25 mm Pb).
  • (10) They left as the leaden sun started to dip; federal police stretched yellow crime scene tape around the sites.
  • (11) 6.08pm BST 36 min: A leaden-footed touch from Weimann puts the ball out of play deep in Liverpool territory, surrendering possession to the visitors in the form of a throw-in.
  • (12) The hour struck, 9.17pm, and leaden silence fell, broken only by the babble of TV reporters beside their mobile trucks.
  • (13) In the fifteenth his legs were leaden; Frazier punished him immediately and before the round had gone a minute a sickeningly violent left hook smashed across the right side of Ali's face, instantly increasing the swelling that had developed there earlier and lifting him flat on his back with his legs kicking high towards the ring lights.
  • (14) If it’s just going to be leaden, and heavy, and bureaucratic, we will lose out.” Speaking to the Guardian as the CBI launches a new report analysing the factors that make some regions more economically successful than others, Fairbairn urged the government to invest more in boosting school standards in order to help address the financial concerns that led to Brexit.
  • (15) 9.13pm BST 12 min: A leaden touch from Jerome Boateng on the edge of his own penalty area puts Per Mertesacker under pressure from Slimani, but the German centre-half clears.
  • (16) As sendoffs go, it is probably fair to say Roy Hodgson hoped for better in England’s final match before Euro 2016 than seeing his team look so leaden, the crowd so bored they resorted to making their own entertainment and a tetchy press conference when the questions centred around whether his team were heading into another tournament without any clarity about their best way of playing.
  • (17) Dowsett set off at positively leaden pace in the opening lap and a half but once he hit cruising speed, he maintained the same even pace throughout, covering most of his laps in about 17sec, raising his game approaching the half-hour and pushing hard in the final 15 minutes.
  • (18) 14 min: A decent scoring opportunity for Brazil goes to waste after a disappointingly leaden-footed touch from Neymar, who is sporting an interesting mohawk type barnet that makes him resemble a toilet brush.
  • (19) Through the leaden rain of a battleship-grey morning in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Britain drifts a flurry of music by Antonio Vivaldi.
  • (20) An enhanced development of pituitary tumors was observed in virgin female mice of the C57 Leaden strain following repeated oral administration of synthetic progestins.