What's the difference between dullness and humdrum?

Dullness


Definition:

  • (n.) The state of being dull; slowness; stupidity; heaviness; drowsiness; bluntness; obtuseness; dimness; want of luster; want of vividness, or of brightness.

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.

Humdrum


Definition:

  • (a.) Monotonous; dull; commonplace.
  • (n.) A dull fellow; a bore.
  • (n.) Monotonous and tedious routine.
  • (n.) A low cart with three wheels, drawn by one horse.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) As a recovering graduate of an institution that played host to a similar bunch of charmers, all I can say is, so far, so humdrum.
  • (2) Gardiner, of course, is not Dominic Jones or Samuel Rhodes; the reality is both more interesting and more humdrum.
  • (3) Her only digression from a rather set, humdrum routine came when in 1975 she divorced her husband and then two years later remarried him.
  • (4) The match took a while to warm up, with Mark Noble’s sweet strike against the underside of the bar the best of a humdrum first half.
  • (5) The rain came down but, with apologies to Morrissey, this was anything but a humdrum town.
  • (6) The learned judge, now back at the more humdrum business of the court of appeal, may be reflecting on the advice of whoever it was who first advised against picking a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.
  • (7) It was both surreal and humdrum at the same time, and that's when I realised just how odd a period we had lived through."
  • (8) Mom always thought such things were middle-class, but I longed for the humdrum of middle-class.
  • (9) Man of the Match - Cristiano Ronaldo His excitement and joy were happily contagious in a humdrum match.
  • (10) She’s free of humdrum routines like school and homework, and is completely self-sufficient.
  • (11) This humdrum victory for Manchester United has a considerable impact on the league table with Sir Alex Ferguson's team, inspired by Cristiano Ronaldo, now four points clear of Chelsea and bristling with a wicked sense of pleasure about the vulnerability of their main challengers.
  • (12) As he said in an interview in the Times on Saturday: "All Tories at whatever level, even a humdrum municipal politician like me, want a Conservative government back in 2015."
  • (13) Fall of the 'Fake Sheikh': how the tables turned on Mazher Mahmood Read more It must be especially galling that his downfall came about after one of his more humdrum sting operations, involving the singer and TV personality Tulisa Contostavlos.
  • (14) At the England squad announcement, which took place at the Luton headquarters of their sponsors Vauxhall, Roy Hodgson was asked if his team was more like a humdrum family saloon or a sports car.
  • (15) Explorers, cartographers and geographical pioneers from Mercator to Palin are presumably humdrum intellectual backmarkers and the study of authors such as Dickens or Eliot, Günter Grass or Alain-Fournier a form of spiritual imprisonment?"
  • (16) His earliest surviving work, Rien que les heures (1926), took its cue from the surrealist notion that, viewed in the appropriate way, the most humdrum districts of a modern city such as Paris could be as exotic as anything shot in the Arctic or the Pacific.
  • (17) Gervais always believed you should write what you know, so when he sat down to create The Office with Stephen Merchant, he set it in the moribund Home Counties where he grew up, in a humdrum working environment not unlike the one where he’d spent the best part of a decade.
  • (18) As a linguist, he confessed himself to be humdrum, but wherever the English language prevailed, he could feel at home.
  • (19) At their best, soaps find drama in the everyday and the mark of Wainwright’s work is that, however dramatic, there is a respect for the drudgery and humdrum nature of much of life.
  • (20) Everton came close to extending their lead five minutes from the break, when a good shot by Séamus Coleman was matched by a diving save from Guzan, yet those highlights apart the first half was a fairly humdrum affair.