What's the difference between dull and stupefy?

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.

Stupefy


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To make stupid; to make dull; to blunt the faculty of perception or understanding in; to deprive of sensibility; to make torpid.
  • (v. t.) To deprive of material mobility.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Between 2002 and 2008, Worboys, who was jailed for life in 2009, carried out more than 100 rapes and sexual assaults using alcohol and drugs to stupefy his victims, said Mr Justice Green at London's high court.
  • (2) The US Congress, its approval rating still near all-time lows , is reinforcing its own record of stupefyingly short-sighted lawmaking with what may be the most harmful piece of economic legislation in America in years: the $1tn 2013 farm bill .
  • (3) Like its predecessors (The Tudors, Spartacus, Camelot etc) the 10-part potboiler is awash with wrecking ball exposition, window-rattling anachronisms and scenes in which heritage hardbodies have shouting backwards sex next to stupefied livestock.
  • (4) It was a ridiculous goal, one that had a stupefying effect on this stadium.
  • (5) Yes, we pound along after prickly DS Gibson as she quietly humiliates stupefied subordinates and draws important red circles around photos with her big Met-issued marker pen.
  • (6) It's debased and stupefied, really, but that's daily politics."
  • (7) He was used and made to look ridiculous in front of those he governs.” Why Trump was invited and then treated so softly left pundits stupefied, especially since Peña Nieto, who is not known for verbal jousting or talking without scripts, missed such a good chance to improve his poor approval rating.
  • (8) Late summer saw a surprising population explosion of wasps, with many wandering around apparently stupefied by gorging on too much honeydew (the sugary excretion of aphids).
  • (9) But I think we should regard it as a moment for opportunity.” Johnson had previously called Trump “ill-informed” and said his comments on Islam showed “a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit to hold the office of president of the United States”.
  • (10) Richard Pasquier, head of the Jewish umbrella group the Crif, not usually critical of the government, said he was "shocked" and "stupefied" by Fillon's comments.
  • (11) Because everywhere where they love their football, the memory lingers of that stupefying free-kick in Le Tournoi in France in 1997 when he bent the ball, defying every law of football physics as hitherto understood, around the outside of a defensive wall with the outside of his left foot, from 35 yards, past a mute, helpless and utterly immobile Fabien Barthez.
  • (12) Wodehouse wrote that a Briton could easily stupefy himself with food at Simpson’s, and quite cheaply, too.
  • (13) Our pharmaceutical industries produce a cornucopia of prescription drugs – eye-opening, stupefying, mood-swinging, game-changing, anxiety-alleviating, performance-enhancing – currently at a global market-value of more than $300bn.
  • (14) What followed was extraordinary even before we reached those final, stupefying moments.
  • (15) Drawn by Russia’s finest political cartoonist, Sergey Elkin , it is at once a powerful portrayal of the stupefying influence of Kremlin-controlled TV and an indication of why neither increasingly harsh western sanctions nor international allegations of Russian culpability in the destruction of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 are likely to damage Vladimir Putin’s soaring popularity at home.
  • (16) Reductive drugs: lowering the intensity of sensations and emotions, in three kinds: a) Releaser drugs, causing removal of inhibitions and production of phantasies; b) Sedation drugs, easing tensions and anxieties; c) Stupefying drugs, blurring all contact with the outer world.
  • (17) There you were, going through life like a stupefied Commie drone, until you got lit up by some smilin’ Wasilla sunshine, and now you can’t get enough.
  • (18) The idea is the mental construct of a powerful lobby, the British navy, its cheerleaders and its suppliers, with their hands on stupefying amounts of public money and an ability to scare politicians into pandering to their interest.
  • (19) Unaccompanied child refugees' suffering on route to Europe laid bare Read more Most of the unaccompanied minors in Catania rarely seem to leave the patch of grass near the station, sitting quietly throughout the stupefying afternoon heat, occasionally washing in the fountain dedicated to the ancient Roman goddess Proserpina.
  • (20) Some news from the sticks: across England and Wales, 41 elections for police commissioners will take place in just over a week, but the buildup to this supposedly watershed moment is stupefyingly quiet.