What's the difference between dull and smart?

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.

Smart


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To feel a lively, pungent local pain; -- said of some part of the body as the seat of irritation; as, my finger smarts; these wounds smart.
  • (v. i.) To feel a pungent pain of mind; to feel sharp pain or grief; to suffer; to feel the sting of evil.
  • (v. t.) To cause a smart in.
  • (v. i.) Quick, pungent, lively pain; a pricking local pain, as the pain from puncture by nettles.
  • (v. i.) Severe, pungent pain of mind; pungent grief; as, the smart of affliction.
  • (v. i.) A fellow who affects smartness, briskness, and vivacity; a dandy.
  • (v. i.) Smart money (see below).
  • (v. i.) Causing a smart; pungent; pricking; as, a smart stroke or taste.
  • (v. i.) Keen; severe; poignant; as, smart pain.
  • (v. i.) Vigorous; sharp; severe.
  • (v. i.) Accomplishing, or able to accomplish, results quickly; active; sharp; clever.
  • (v. i.) Efficient; vigorous; brilliant.
  • (v. i.) Marked by acuteness or shrewdness; quick in suggestion or reply; vivacious; witty; as, a smart reply; a smart saying.
  • (v. i.) Pretentious; showy; spruce; as, a smart gown.
  • (v. i.) Brisk; fresh; as, a smart breeze.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Pint from £2.90 The Duke Of York With its smart greige interior, flagstone floor and extensive food menu (not tried), this newcomer feels like a gastropub.
  • (2) Never become so enamored of your own smarts that you stop signing up for life’s hard classes.
  • (3) "He's defined by being himself, by being smart, by being a good athlete," Goldwater said of Keller.
  • (4) Advancing the health and rights of women is the right – and smart – thing to do for any nation hoping to remain or emerge as a leader on the global stage.
  • (5) By way of encouragement we've got 10 copies of Faber's smart new anniversary edition to give away.
  • (6) It’s likely Xi’s brand of smart authoritarianism will keep not just his party in power but the whole show on the road If all this were to succeed as intended, western liberal democratic capitalism would have a formidable ideological competitor with worldwide appeal, especially in the developing world.
  • (7) These letters are also written during a period when Joyce was still smarting from the publishing difficulties of his earlier works Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Gordon Bowker, Joyce’s biographer, agreed: “Joyce’s problem with the UK printers related to the fact that here in those days printers were as much at risk of prosecution on charges of publishing obscenities as were publishers, and would simply refuse to print them.
  • (8) I could just banish the app from my phone forever, but deleting a piece of smart tech that makes my life easier doesn’t feel very satisfying.
  • (9) I buy ‘smart price’, own-brand cornflakes, rather than Kellogg’s, and I still get to the checkout and think, ‘That’s come to a lot again.’” Are you Daniel Blake?
  • (10) If you're sincere and smart and genuine and lovable that's what's going to come across in your videos and tweets."
  • (11) In a statement, Fisher Price said: “We recently learned of a security vulnerability with our Fisher-Price WiFi-connected Smart Toy Bear.
  • (12) Can consoles still survive in a rapidly changing business where smartphones, tablets and smart TVs, and now Steam Machines, are threatening?
  • (13) Snapchat is also thinking about new devices, launching a Snapchat Micro app for Samsung's Galaxy Gear smart watch in September, capable of shooting pics and videos with the device's camera, then sharing them.
  • (14) There were signs of encouragement early in the second half from Sunderland, and they should have pulled one back only for a terrible call from the assistant referee Eddie Smart.
  • (15) In Drosophila melanogaster new tester strains for the somatic mutation and recombination test (SMART) in the wing were constructed with the aim of increasing the metabolic capacity to activate promutagens.
  • (16) And there are plenty who think that, as our libel laws are cleaned up, smart lawyers are switching horses to privacy.
  • (17) I think the heart of good comedy really lives in truth and reacting to the absurdities, hypocrisies, abuses of power in the world.” Late night television is a no longer a glass of warm milk before bed, it’s a lunch buffet And as TV viewership declines and internet virality becomes as important as real-time eyeballs, cable networks might find that topical comedy is a smart, cost-effective way to grab cross-platform attention.
  • (18) With cities moving markets, joint procurement standards generate great potential for economies of scale, from buses to smart street lighting.
  • (19) A smart city would use IT to manage traffic so air stays fit to breathe.
  • (20) Pitched as a "smart" calendar, it's easy to create appointments and events, and ties in neatly with the developer's separate Any.do to-do lists app.