What's the difference between dull and sharp?

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.

Sharp


Definition:

  • (superl.) Having a very thin edge or fine point; of a nature to cut or pierce easily; not blunt or dull; keen.
  • (superl.) Terminating in a point or edge; not obtuse or rounded; somewhat pointed or edged; peaked or ridged; as, a sharp hill; sharp features.
  • (superl.) Affecting the sense as if pointed or cutting, keen, penetrating, acute: to the taste or smell, pungent, acid, sour, as ammonia has a sharp taste and odor; to the hearing, piercing, shrill, as a sharp sound or voice; to the eye, instantaneously brilliant, dazzling, as a sharp flash.
  • (superl.) High in pitch; acute; as, a sharp note or tone.
  • (superl.) Raised a semitone in pitch; as, C sharp (C/), which is a half step, or semitone, higher than C.
  • (superl.) So high as to be out of tune, or above true pitch; as, the tone is sharp; that instrument is sharp. Opposed in all these senses to flat.
  • (superl.) Very trying to the feelings; piercing; keen; severe; painful; distressing; as, sharp pain, weather; a sharp and frosty air.
  • (superl.) Cutting in language or import; biting; sarcastic; cruel; harsh; rigorous; severe; as, a sharp rebuke.
  • (superl.) Of keen perception; quick to discern or distinguish; having nice discrimination; acute; penetrating; sagacious; clever; as, a sharp eye; sharp sight, hearing, or judgment.
  • (superl.) Eager in pursuit; keen in quest; impatient for gratification; keen; as, a sharp appetite.
  • (superl.) Fierce; ardent; fiery; violent; impetuous.
  • (superl.) Keenly or unduly attentive to one's own interest; close and exact in dealing; shrewd; as, a sharp dealer; a sharp customer.
  • (superl.) Composed of hard, angular grains; gritty; as, sharp sand.
  • (superl.) Steep; precipitous; abrupt; as, a sharp ascent or descent; a sharp turn or curve.
  • (superl.) Uttered in a whisper, or with the breath alone, without voice, as certain consonants, such as p, k, t, f; surd; nonvocal; aspirated.
  • (adv.) To a point or edge; piercingly; eagerly; sharply.
  • (adv.) Precisely; exactly; as, we shall start at ten o'clock sharp.
  • (n.) A sharp tool or weapon.
  • (n.) The character [/] used to indicate that the note before which it is placed is to be raised a half step, or semitone, in pitch.
  • (n.) A sharp tone or note.
  • (n.) A portion of a stream where the water runs very rapidly.
  • (n.) A sewing needle having a very slender point; a needle of the most pointed of the three grades, blunts, betweens, and sharps.
  • (n.) Same as Middlings, 1.
  • (n.) An expert.
  • (v. t.) To sharpen.
  • (v. t.) To raise above the proper pitch; to elevate the tone of; especially, to raise a half step, or semitone, above the natural tone.
  • (v. i.) To play tricks in bargaining; to act the sharper.
  • (v. i.) To sing above the proper pitch.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Basal 20 alpha DHP levels remained low until a sharp rise at mid pro-oestrus.
  • (2) Whole-virus vaccines prepared by Merck Sharp and Dohme (West Point, Pa.) and Merrell-National Laboratories (Cincinnati, Ohio) and subunit vaccines prepared by Parke, Davis and Company (Detroit, Mich.) and Wyeth Laboratories (Philadelphia, Pa.) were given intramuscularly in concentrations of 800, 400, or 200 chick cell-agglutinating units per dose.
  • (3) Gonadectomy of females was accompanied by changes in the activity of individual HAS links in different direction--some reduction of ACTH in the hypophysis, a sharp and significant fall of the peripheral blood glucocorticoid level and a marked significant elevation of hydrococortisone production in the adrenal cortex in vitro.
  • (4) The University of the Arts London and Sunderland, Sheffield Hallam, Manchester Met and Leeds Met university have also experienced sharp declines in applications.
  • (5) A sharp decrease in oxygen uptake occurred in Neurospora crassa cells that were transferred from 30 degrees C to 45 degrees C, and the respiration that resumed later at 45 degrees C was cyanide-insensitive.
  • (6) In contrast to findings in the rat and dog, no sharp drop but a gradual fall in CLi was observed at decreasing FENa values down to 0.02%.
  • (7) A more specific differentiation, as indicated by the sharp increase in GAD levels which was concurrent with an increase in interneuronal contacts, lagged behind the initial growth.
  • (8) It appears that the decline in plasma IGF-I lags considerably behind the sharp fall in plasma GH levels and expression of hepatic IGF-I mRNA.
  • (9) Supplementation of Mg resulted in a sharp increase in serum PTH level with a rapid disappearance of the dissociation between the two immunoassays of PTH.
  • (10) A.CA animals were extremely susceptible, showing a sharp and sustained increase in parasitemia starting on day 12, followed by death no later than day 15 post-inoculation.
  • (11) There was a sharp transition with actin nearly saturated with S1: when the S1 to actin ratio was low, the kinetics were fast (K1 greater than 300 microM, k2 greater than 40 s-1); when it was high, they were slow (K1 = 14 microM, k2 = 2 s-1).
  • (12) Low calcium causes an increase in optimum frequency, a decrease in current threshold, and an increase in sharpness of tuning in both real axons and axons computed according to the Hodgkin-Huxley formulation; high calcium causes opposite effects.
  • (13) The Tea Party movement has turned climate denial into a litmus test of conservative credentials – and that has made climate change one of the most sharp divisions between Obama and Romney.
  • (14) The presence in lamprey kidney of a loop which is similar to Henle's loop in mammals and birds indicates that the development of the system of osmotic concentration conditioned by the formation in the kidney of the medulla and from a sharp increase in renal arterial blood supply.
  • (15) There is no longer a sharp dividing line between working and rentiering.
  • (16) We are going to see a sharp fall unless sellers hold the sector up by making aggressive offers.
  • (17) A sharp increase in the intensity of lipids biochemiluminiscence and decrease in the tissue homogenates biochemiluminiscence were observed during the period of progressive tumour growth on the 6-8 days following introduction of the virus.
  • (18) By no means is this a new theme, but it has taken on an added sharpness and urgency after the conferences.
  • (19) The blood lymphocytes were small with scanty cytoplasm, densely condensed nuclear chromatin, and deep clefts originating in sharp angles from the nuclear surface.
  • (20) In sharp contrast, the coverage provided by the various mainstream news channels and newspapers not only seems – with some exceptions – unresponsive and stilted, but often non-existent.