What's the difference between dullness and tedium?

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.

Tedium


Definition:

  • (n.) Irksomeness; wearisomeness; tediousness.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) After about half an hour, we were positively praying for a major pile-up just to relieve the tedium.
  • (2) He loved the excitement and the glitter of his post, but could never really accept the hours of drudgery and tedium that the job of Liberal leader involved.
  • (3) Lineker points out that the accusations of tedium are at odds with the basic tone and tempo.
  • (4) What I actually did was marry the mind-numbing tedium of a second-rate reality show, with the plodding boredom of a sub-standard pub quiz.
  • (5) Introduction of computers and image analysis systems are gaining faster momentum in order to quantitate the assessment of cells for diagnosis and prognosis, and this system aims to relieve the operator from the tedium of microscopic observation and reduce operator bias and human error.
  • (6) Whatever door of perception that pill is machine-gunning off its hinges, blathering on about the experience through clenched teeth is tedium squared to anyone sober.
  • (7) So what was he thinking to give up his former life for the tedium of the backbenches?
  • (8) Rob and co are casting around for a future – and, more immediately, for ways to kill the tedium of the present: sex, drugs, diving into silos filled with wheat grain and getting pulled out on the point of suffocation, that sort of thing.
  • (9) 9.06am GMT 35 min: This match has reached almost Osieck-levels of tedium.
  • (10) Both men spend 24 hours a day in their mosquito-infested cells, sleeping on the floor with no books or writing materials to break the soul-destroying tedium.
  • (11) Batty said court orders did not offer sufficient protection to women and children affected by domestic violence, and the court system typically saw family violence “as a tedium in their workload”.
  • (12) The duration, monotony and repetition entailed in the reading of each file echoes the normalisation of the violence and tedium endured by refugees in indefinite detention,” she said.
  • (13) An important advantage of the procedure is that the normally tedious calculations involved with distortions have been computerized, thus eliminating the tedium of repeated calculations.
  • (14) It will, say scientists, provide invaluable data on how a crew would cope with the difficulties and inevitable tedium of long-duration space flight.
  • (15) That's how it often operates in the US – long stretches of tedium interrupted by the odd spark of conflict.
  • (16) 5.28pm BST 27 min : A lovely reverse flick from Pirlo relieves the tedium.
  • (17) This new approach avoids the tedium, time and expense involved in the widely used saliva hemagglutination inhibition assay.
  • (18) On day six you take one look at the menu and stab yourself in the eye with a fork BECAUSE YOU CAN'T TAKE THE SODDING TEDIUM ANY MORE.
  • (19) However, ergometric studies in this regard have been hampered by the tedium of physiologic data collection and analysis.
  • (20) Some people thrive on strife and stress, while others prefer total tedium.