What's the difference between dull and numb?

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.

Numb


Definition:

  • (a.) Enfeebled in, or destitute of, the power of sensation and motion; rendered torpid; benumbed; insensible; as, the fingers or limbs are numb with cold.
  • (a.) Producing numbness; benumbing; as, the numb, cold night.
  • (v. t.) To make numb; to deprive of the power of sensation or motion; to render senseless or inert; to deaden; to benumb; to stupefy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Symptoms include numbness, tingling and pain in the anterolateral thigh.
  • (2) Headache and vertigo were not linked with exposure to vibration in forestry and a significant part of the numbness reported may be due to the carpal tunnel syndrome.
  • (3) With grievous amazement, never self-pitying but sometimes bordering on a sort of numbed wonderment, Levi records the day-to-day personal and social history of the camp, noting not only the fine gradations of his own descent, but the capacity of some prisoners to cut a deal and strike a bargain, while others, destined by their age or character for the gas ovens, follow "the slope down to the bottom, like streams that run down to the sea".
  • (4) Forty-four patients of meralgia paraesthetica presented with combination of symptoms mainly of numbness with loss of superficial sensation on the anterolateral aspect of a thigh were selected for the study.
  • (5) Postoperatively, the weakness of the lower extremities was improved immediately, but numbness remained.
  • (6) Numbness sets in.” Philip Hope-Wallace on Look Back in Anger “I must be the only playwright this century to have been pursued up a London street by an angry mob … There was an inescapable tension in the house.
  • (7) A case is reported of a patient with sudden onset, generalized toothache accompanied with a numb chin and lower lip.
  • (8) A 57-year-old man was admitted with the complaints of vague headache and left upper limb numbness.
  • (9) Unilateral enlargement of the tibialis anterior muscle associated with complex repetitive discharges occurred over several months in two patients and was preceded by pain and numbness in the lower leg.
  • (10) But after 14 hours Danilkin's numbing monologue – almost a carbon copy of the prosecutors's case – is beginning to pall.
  • (11) In the nineteenth century, some natives of Peru noticed circumoral numbness, euphoria and analgesia after chewing the leaves of the Erythroxylen coca bush.
  • (12) In a random sample of 3000 women of ages eighteen to fifty-nine years in the city of Västerås, Sweden, 19% of the 2705 responders to a questionnaire complained of cold and white fingers with or without numbness.
  • (13) There were some hormonal patterns characteristic of individual complaints; hot flush was associated with increased FSH and LH, and decreased E1 and E2; difficulty in falling asleep, excitability, and fatigability, with increased FSH and LH, and decreased E2; nervousness, with increased LH and decreased E2; headache, with increased LH and PRL, and decreased E2; feeling of cold, with decreased E2 and PRL; and numbness and shoulder stiffness, with decreased E2.
  • (14) Other common manifestations were unilateral leg pain, numbness or weakness of the leg, and evidence of mild cauda equina compression.
  • (15) Major symptoms included progressive hearing loss, facial numbness, occipital headaches, dizziness, and diplopia of less than a year's duration.
  • (16) A case is reported in which mandibular swelling and lower lip numbness were the first signs of a metastatic adenocarcinoma of the lung.
  • (17) A 60 year-old man complained of numbness and pain in the right lower limb, suggesting lesions of the fifth lumbar and first sacral roots.
  • (18) The prevalence of VWF, numbness and coldness of the fingers, and coldness of the legs was higher the longer the total chain saw operating period.
  • (19) 3) At the severe stage, pain and dullness at the back, numbness at arms and hands, hand coldness, sleep disturbance etc.
  • (20) The perioral numbness (paresthesia) experienced at doses of 750, 900, and 1,000 mg was probably drug related.