What's the difference between dull and sober?

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.

Sober


Definition:

  • (superl.) Temperate in the use of spirituous liquors; habitually temperate; as, a sober man.
  • (superl.) Not intoxicated or excited by spirituous liquors; as, the sot may at times be sober.
  • (superl.) Not mad or insane; not wild, visionary, or heated with passion; exercising cool, dispassionate reason; self-controlled; self-possessed.
  • (superl.) Not proceeding from, or attended with, passion; calm; as, sober judgment; a man in his sober senses.
  • (superl.) Serious or subdued in demeanor, habit, appearance, or color; solemn; grave; sedate.
  • (v. t.) To make sober.
  • (v. i.) To become sober; -- often with down.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It's typically sober and elegant, and Cotillard excels in a nervy, vulnerable role.
  • (2) Read Rachel’s full story Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chris Owen: ‘I’ve been sober for six years now, and I don’t miss alcohol.’ Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian I spent my 20s playing Russian roulette with alcohol The NHS has been there time and time again for Chris Owen, who battled alcoholism throughout his 20s.
  • (3) Anthony Wells, director of YouGov’s political and social research team, said: “While there will be speculation about whether this movement is connected to the tragic death of Jo Cox, we do not think that it is... We are now in the final week of the referendum campaign and the swing back towards the status quo appears to be in full force.” EU referendum voters unconvinced by scare tactics: ‘I just want to do what’s right’ Read more Today, both sides will resume their battle to capture the votes of the undecided and to persuade people to switch sides, though both the Leave and Remain camps say that the manner of their campaigning will be more sober and less combative.
  • (4) Previous research has found a relationship between increased quantity of alcohol usually consumed per drinking occasion and decreased sober cognitive performance.
  • (5) "Yet the sobering fact remains that a transition to a low-carbon, inclusive green economy is happening far too slowly and the opportunity for meeting the 44 gigatonne target is narrowing annually," Steiner said.
  • (6) The haemostatic imbalance normalizes within two or three weeks of soberness while the immune system requires about two months to recover.
  • (7) Chambers claims she became extremely intoxicated while her ex-boyfriend remained much more sober, and says she has no memory of him having sex with her that night.
  • (8) Therefore, the presence of pulmonary emboli in association with sagittal sinus thrombosis mandates a sober assessment of the need of anticoagulation therapy in the absence of obvious contraindication.
  • (9) Mutual intoxication was a feature in 44% of the cases and in 34% both participants were sober.
  • (10) Impulsive and bonhomous, Saakashvili, meanwhile, is clearly the temperamental opposite of Putin, the sober and clinical former KGB colonel.
  • (11) Barton rubs Old Firm up the wrong way Joey Barton apologises ‘unreservedly’ after being sent home by Rangers Read more The phrase “Joey Barton Twitter storm” is pretty much a tautology, so it was no surprise that his decision to sign for Rangers in May had social media in a kerfuffle when his 2012 tweet – “I am a Celtic fan” – was dredged up so that it might be subject to calm and sober scrutiny from all concerned.
  • (12) And yet here I am today, a sober, emancipated, successful and happy woman.
  • (13) After all, on any sober calculation of relative sins, HSBC's dealings with Mexican drug bandits were surely several leagues more serious than other banks' Libor-rigging scandals.
  • (14) In the swinging 1960s, Peck's sober style seemed a little out of place, though he appeared in a couple of flashy Hitchcockian thrillers, Mirage (1965) and Arabesque (1966), and adapted to the new Hollywood as best he could, looking rather bothered as the father of a demon in The Omen (1976).
  • (15) Alcoholics reported more anger and aggression when drinking than when sober and this effect was greatest among individuals with a history of childhood aggression.
  • (16) She observed soberly that "the moment human beings lacked their own government and had to fall back upon their minimum rights, no authority was left to protect them and no institution was willing to guarantee them … Loss of national rights was identical with loss of human rights … The rights of man, supposedly inalienable, proved to be unenforceable … whenever people appeared who were no longer citizens of any sovereign state."
  • (17) It's not the most groundbreaking piece of research, but I did find it both instructive and sobering.
  • (18) In a year that will be punctuated by sober reflection and a series of commemorative occasions, it is tempting to assume a certain inevitability to events, especially when looking at them through the prism of hindsight.
  • (19) Even in alcoholics who have been sober for a long time, increased cardiac output is very common and these changes are similar to those seen in some patients with labile hypertension.
  • (20) He was a vegan, sober, nonsexual God-botherer partying in the blood-soaked Meatpacking District with the sex-and-druggers.