different between dull vs drug

English

Alternative forms

• dul, dulle (all obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English dull, dul (also dyll, dill, dwal), from Old English dol (“dull, foolish, erring, heretical; foolish, silly; presumptuous”), from Proto-Germanic *dulaz, a variant of *dwalaz (“stunned, mad, foolish, misled”), from Proto-Indo-European *d?wel-, *d?ewel- (“to dim, dull, cloud, make obscure, swirl, whirl”). Cognate with Scots dull, doll (“slow to understand or hear, deaf, dull”), North Frisian dol (“rash, unthinking, giddy, flippant”), Dutch dol (“crazy, mad, insane”), Low German dul, dol (“mad, silly, stupid, fatuous”), German toll (“crazy, mad, wild, fantastic”), Danish dval (“foolish, absurd”), Icelandic dulur (“secretive, silent”), West-Flemish dul (angry, furious).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d?l/
  • (Canada) IPA^(key): /d?l/, /d?l/, /d??/
• (US)
• Rhymes: -?l

Adjective

dull (comparative duller, superlative dullest)

1. Lacking the ability to cut easily; not sharp.

2. Boring; not exciting or interesting.

3. Not shiny; having a matte finish or no particular luster or brightness.

   a dull fire or lamp;? a dull red or yellow;? a dull mirror

   • A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.

4. Not bright or intelligent; stupid; having slow understanding.
5. Sluggish, listless.

   • This people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, Faerie Queene

     O, help my weak wit and sharpen my dull tongue.
6. Cloudy, overcast.

7. Insensible; unfeeling.

   • Think me not / So dull a devil to forget the loss / Of such a matchless wife.

8. Heavy; lifeless; inert.
   • c. 1857', Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Table-Talk

     As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so changes of study a dull brain.

9. (of pain etc) Not intense; felt indistinctly or only slightly.

   Pressing on the bruise produces a dull pain.

10. (of a noise or sound) Not clear, muffled.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:boring
• See also Thesaurus:stupid
• (not shiny): lackluster, matte

Antonyms

• bright
• intelligent
• sharp

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

dull (third-person singular simple present dulls, present participle dulling, simple past and past participle dulled)

1. (transitive) To render dull; to remove or blunt an edge or something that was sharp.

   Years of misuse have dulled the tools.

   • 1623, Francis Bacon, A Discourse of a War with Spain

     This […] dulled their swords.

2. (transitive) To soften, moderate or blunt; to make dull, stupid, or sluggish; to stupefy.

   He drinks to dull the pain.

   • 1850, Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord

     Use and custom have so dulled our eyes.

3. (intransitive) To lose a sharp edge; to become dull.

   A razor will dull with use.

4. To render dim or obscure; to sully; to tarnish.

Synonyms

• dullen

Translations

References

• dull in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• dull in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• ULDL

Welsh

Etymology

Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dey?- (“to show, point out”).

Pronunciation

• (North Wales) IPA^(key): /d???/
• (South Wales) IPA^(key): /d??/

Noun

dull m (plural dulliau)

1. method

Mutation

Further reading

• R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present) , “dull”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies

References

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /d???/, [d????????]
• Rhymes: -??

Etymology 1

From Middle English drogge (“medicine”), from Middle French drogue (“cure, pharmaceutical product”), from Old French drogue, drocque (“tincture, pharmaceutical product”), from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German droge, as in droge vate (“dry vats, dry barrels”), mistaking droge for the contents, which were usually dried herbs, plants or wares. Droge comes from Middle Dutch dr?ghe (“dry”), from Old Dutch dr?gi (“dry”), from Proto-Germanic *draugiz (“dry, hard”). Cognate with English dry, Dutch droog (“dry”), German trocken (“dry”).

Noun

drug (plural drugs)

1. (pharmacology) A substance used to treat an illness, relieve a symptom, or modify a chemical process in the body for a specific purpose.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:pharmaceutical
2. A psychoactive substance, especially one which is illegal and addictive, ingested for recreational use, such as cocaine.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:recreational drug

   • 1971, Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Harper Perennial 2005 edition, page 3:

     We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

   • March 1991, unknown student, "Antihero opinion", SPIN, page 70

     You have a twelve-year-old kid being told from the time he's like five years old that all drugs are bad, they're going to screw you up, don't try them. Just say no. Then they try pot.

   • 2005, Thomas Brent Andrews, The Pot Plan: Louie B. Stumblin and the War on Drugs, Chronic Discontent Books, ?ISBN, page 19

     The only thing working against the poor Drug Abuse Resistance Officer is high-school students. ... He'd offer his simple lesson: Drugs are bad, people who use drugs are bad, and abstinence is the only answer.

3. Anything, such as a substance, emotion, or action, to which one is addicted.
   • 2005, Jack Haas, Om, Baby!: a Pilgrimage to the Eternal Self, page 8

     Inspiration is my drug. Such things as spirituality, booze, travel, psychedelics, contemplation, music, dance, laughter, wilderness, and ribaldry — these have simply been the different forms of the drug of inspiration for which I have had great need […]

   • 2010, Kesha Rose Sebert (Ke$ha), with Pebe Sebert and Joshua Coleman (Ammo), Your Love is My Drug
4. Any commodity that lies on hand, or is not salable; an article of slow sale, or in no demand.
   • 1685, John Dryden, Albion and Albanius

     And virtue shall a drug become.

   • 1742, Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews

     But sermons are mere drugs.

5. (Canada, US, informal) Short for drugstore.
   • 1980, Stephen King, The Mist

     “I’ll go this far,” I answered him. “We’ll try going over to the drug. You, me, Ollie if he wants to go, one or two others. Then we’ll talk it over again.”

Usage notes

• Adjectives often used with "drug": dangerous, illicit, illegal, psychoactive, generic, hard, veterinary, recreational

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

drug (third-person singular simple present drugs, present participle drugging, simple past and past participle drugged)

1. (transitive) To administer intoxicating drugs to, generally without the recipient's knowledge or consent.

2. (transitive) To add intoxicating drugs to with the intention of drugging someone.

3. (intransitive) To prescribe or administer drugs or medicines.
   • 1610, Ben Jonson, The Alchemist

     Past all the doses of your drugging doctors

Translations

Etymology 2

Germanic ablaut formation. If old, a doublet of drew, from Proto-Germanic *dr?g; compare Dutch droeg, German trug, Swedish drog. If secondary, probably formed by analogy with hang.

Verb

drug

1. (dialect) simple past tense and past participle of drag

   You look like someone drug you behind a horse for half a mile.

   • 1961 Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron

     […] their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.

Usage notes

• Random House says that drug is "nonstandard" as the past tense of drag. Merriam-Webster once ruled that drug in this construction was "illiterate" but have since upgraded it to "dialect". The lexicographers of New World, American Heritage, and Oxford make no mention of this sense.

Etymology 3

Noun

drug (plural drugs)

1. (obsolete) A drudge.

Romanian

Etymology

From Serbo-Croatian drug.

Noun

drug m (plural drugi)

1. pole, stick

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *drug?, from Proto-Balto-Slavic *draugás, from Proto-Indo-European *d?rewg?-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /drû??/

Noun

dr?g m (Cyrillic spelling ?????)

1. (Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro) friend
2. (dated) comrade (commonly used in parts of Former Yugoslavia among coworkers or friends)

Declension

Synonyms

• prijatelj
• drugar
• frend (slang, Croatia)

Derived terms

Related terms

• drugàrica
• drúga
• drùžica

Slovene

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /drú?k/

Adjective

dr?g (not comparable)

1. other, another, different

Inflection

See also

• drúgi

Further reading

• “drug”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU, portal Fran

Westrobothnian

Alternative forms

• dru
• dröuw
• dryg

Etymology

From Old Norse drjúgr, from Proto-Germanic *dreugaz.

Adjective

drug (comparative drugänä, superlative drugest)

1. lasting
2. haughty

Related terms

• dryj
• drögt
• drögnä