What's the difference between dull and listless?

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.

Listless


Definition:

  • (a.) Having no desire or inclination; indifferent; heedless; spiritless.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) After six months of sessions, when the infant manifested full-blown weaning patterns, the mother reported symptoms indicating a major depressive episode, such as pervasive dejection and rejection, listlessness, and anxiety attacks.
  • (2) I watched as a class of listless 10-year-olds struggled with an aimless lesson in creationism.
  • (3) Its findings – including evidence that the Republican nominee is making dramatic headway with female voters, young people and those in the heartlands of the mid-west – appear to confirm that Obama's listless performance at the debate, and by contrast Romney's strong showing, has translated into a powerful political force.
  • (4) Within 3 hours of bacterial inoculation, all lambs that received P haemolytica were anorectic, listless, and febrile, and had hyperpnea and dyspnea.
  • (5) Sturm, Stahl, and Heer sit a few chairs down from Zschäpe in what appears a state of permanent listlessness.
  • (6) But Farber's lab was listless and empty, a bare warren of chemicals and glass jars connected to the main hospital through a series of icy corridors.
  • (7) Bojan Krkic and Xherdan Shaqiri were substituted after strangely listless performances and there was a collective gasp from the crowd when the public announcer named Marko Arnautovic as the man of the match.
  • (8) "People are now lethargic and listless because of starvation.
  • (9) And there is nothing more elderly than listlessness and fear.
  • (10) Everything else is flashback, rewinding to show the drip-drip of humiliations that turn a listless pizza delivery man into a killer with nothing to lose.
  • (11) The second half began as a listless affair until De Bruyne took charge.
  • (12) Tambor’s children are self-involved, sexually confused and in the middle of various life crises, with Girls star Gaby Hoffman particularly impressive as listless youngest daughter Ali.
  • (13) This exploratory study, conducted among 104 male workers free from cardiovascular disease (CVD), tested the association between burnout and two of its common concomitants--tension and listlessness--and cardiovascular risk factors.
  • (14) In a typical outbreak, 5% of the pullets were stunted and listless with unkempt feathers.
  • (15) All infected pigs showed inappetence and listlessness, but there were no clinical signs of nervous disorder.
  • (16) There is a peculiar pridelessness in the current Britain, a listless indifference to the morals it holds and represents.
  • (17) About half of under-25-year-olds in the labour force are without a job, and this threatens to leave the country with a listless lost generation for whom unemployment is the norm.
  • (18) Clinical signs of hyperviscosity syndrome in a 6-year-old dog included listlessness, polydipsia, anorexia, vomiting, and recurrent bleeding from the gums.
  • (19) In Godard's film, the Concordia plays the role of a decadent limbo where the tourists drift listlessly amid the ritzy interiors.
  • (20) So high, in fact, that the cast appears to be suffering from altitude sickness, with characters staggering around listlessly while peering upwards, or pulling faces like geese struggling to choose between souvenir cagoules in Glen Nevis Visitor Centre.