different between crusty vs blunt

English

Etymology

From Middle English, equivalent to crust +? -y.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k??sti/
• Rhymes: -?sti

Adjective

crusty (comparative crustier, superlative crustiest)

1. Having a crust, especially a thick one.
   • 1899, Kate Chopin, The Awakening

     No one was there. But there was a cloth spread upon the table that stood against the wall, and a cover was laid for one, with a crusty brown loaf and a bottle of wine beside the plate

2. (informal, figuratively, of a person or behavior) Short-tempered and gruff but, sometimes, with a harmless or benign inner nature.

   Synonyms: gruff, peevish, surly, harsh

   • 1922, Henry William Fischer, Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field

     Then somebody told a story about the Swedish Majesty's last sojourn in Norway. There, at a railway station, Oscar ran against a crusty old farmer who thought himself a lot better than a mere king and kept his hat on.

3. (informal) Of very low quality. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

   Synonym: inferior

Translations

Noun

crusty (plural crusties)

1. (chiefly Britain, informal) A tramp or homeless young person with poor cleanliness.
2. (slang) Dried eye mucus.

   Synonyms: (UK dialectal) gound, sleep, (informal) sleepy dust

   • 1999, Vinnie Hansen, Murder, Honey, Xlibris Corporation, ?ISBN, page 155:

     Against the backdrop of muted stripes of color, Julieanne picked at her eyes’ crusties, and then combed her hair with the hand.

   • 2003, Mary O'Connell, "Saint Anne", in Living with Saints, Grove Press, ?ISBN, page 209:

     Jesus, how could I bear the sight of him—sleep crusties lodged in the corners of his rheumy eyes, a puff of chest hair cresting like meringue over the top of his V-neck sweater, khakis jacked up to his breastbone—when I was used to looking at the singularly lovely Isabella?

   • 2005, Jeffrey Dinsmore, I, an Actress: The Autobiography of Karen Jamey, Contemporary Press, ?ISBN, page 51:

     I wiped the crusties from my eyes, threw on a sundress, and wandered out into the living room.

3. (chiefly Britain, informal) A member of an urban subculture with roots in punk and grebo, characterized by antiestablishment attitudes and an unkempt appearance.
   • 1998, Simon Reynolds, Energy Flash, Soft Skull Press (2012) (?ISBN), page 135:

     The Spirals are part of the crossover between the rave scene and the ‘crusty’ subculture—crusties being squat-dwelling anarcho-hippy-punk types named after their matted dreadlocks and post-apocalyptic garb.

Alternative forms

• crustie

See also

• cruddy
• crufty

References

• crusty in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• “crusty” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• "crusty" in the Wordsmyth Dictionary-Thesaurus (Wordsmyth, 2002)
• "crusty (adj. easily annoyed)" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
• "crusty (n. an unwashed person)" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
• “crusty”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.
• Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989)
• Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary (1987-1996)

Anagrams

• curtsy

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /bl?nt/
• Rhymes: -?nt

Etymology 1

From Middle English blunt, blont, from Old English *blunt (attested in the derivative Blunta (male personal name) (> English surnames Blunt, Blount)), probably of North Germanic origin, possibly related to Old Norse blunda (“to doze”) (> Icelandic blunda, Swedish blunda, Danish blunde).

Adjective

blunt (comparative blunter, superlative bluntest)

1. Having a thick edge or point; not sharp.
2. Dull in understanding; slow of discernment; opposed to acute.
3. Abrupt in address; plain; unceremonious; wanting the forms of civility; rough in manners or speech.

   the blunt admission that he had never liked my company
4. Hard to impress or penetrate.
   • December 30, 1736, Alexander Pope, letter to Jonathan Swift

     I find my heart hardened and blunt to new impressions.

5. Slow or deficient in feeling: insensitive.

Synonyms

• (having a thick edge or point): dull, pointless, coarse
• (dull in understanding): stupid, obtuse
• (abrupt in address): curt, short, rude, brusque, impolite, uncivil, harsh

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

blunt (plural blunts)

1. A fencer's practice foil with a soft tip.
2. A short needle with a strong point.
3. (smoking) A marijuana cigar.
   • 2005: to make his point, lead rapper B-Real fired up a blunt in front of the cameras and several hundred thousand people and announced, “I'm taking a hit for every one of y'all!” — Martin Torgoff, Can't Find My Way Home (Simon & Schuster 2005, p. 461)
4. (Britain, slang, archaic, uncountable) money

   • Down he goes to the Commons, to see the lawyer and draw the blunt […]

5. A playboating move resembling a cartwheel performed on a wave.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English blunten, blonten, from the adjective (see above).

Verb

blunt (third-person singular simple present blunts, present participle blunting, simple past and past participle blunted)

1. To dull the edge or point of, by making it thicker; to make blunt.
2. (figuratively) To repress or weaken; to impair the force, keenness, or susceptibility, of

   It blunted my appetite.

   My feeling towards her have been blunted.

Synonyms

• blunten

Translations

See also

• bluntly
• dull

Old French

Etymology

From Frankish *blund, from Proto-Germanic *blundaz, from Proto-Indo-European *b?lend?-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /blont/, [bl?nt]

Adjective

blunt m (oblique and nominative feminine singular blunde)

1. Alternative form of blont