Advertisement - Continue reading below

Definition of "dumb" []

  • Lacking the power of speech. Used of animals and inanimate objects. (adjective)
  • Often Offensive Incapable of using speech; mute. Used of humans. See Usage Note at mute. (adjective)
  • Temporarily speechless, as with shock or fear: I was dumb with disbelief. (adjective)
  • Unwilling to speak; taciturn. (adjective)
  • Not expressed or articulated in sounds or words: dumb resentment. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "dumb" in a sentence
  • "Boy were we dumb to read them back in the 60's..dumb but ahh what silly fun."
  • "DUMB: A dumb wine is also a closed wine, but the term dumb is used in a more pejorative sense."
  • "The software features it offers are brutally malfunctioning such as the simplest OR operation which reduces the (purportedly) 159,000 item set for the term dumb to (purportedly) 92,000 items when the query is broadened to dumb OR dumber."