blunt

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English[edit]

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Etymology[edit]

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

Pronunciation[edit]

Adjective[edit]

blunt (comparative blunter, superlative bluntest)

  1. Having a thick edge or point; not sharp.
    • William Shakespeare (c.1564–1616)
      The murderous knife was dull and blunt.
    • 1944, Miles Burton, The Three Corpse Trick, chapter 5:
      The dinghy was trailing astern at the end of its painter, and Merrion looked at it as he passed. He saw that it was a battered-looking affair of the prahm type, with a blunt snout, and like the parent ship, had recently been painted a vivid green.
    • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 17, in The China Governess[1]:
      The face which emerged was not reassuring. It was blunt and grey, the nose springing thick and flat from high on the frontal bone of the forehead, whilst his eyes were narrow slits of dark in a tight bandage of tissue. […].
  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.
    • Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
      I find my heart hardened and blunt to new impressions.
  5. Slow or deficient in feeling: insensitive.

Synonyms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Terms derived from blunt

Translations[edit]

Noun[edit]

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
    • Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers
      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[edit]

Verb[edit]

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.
    • 2011 January 12, Saj Chowdhury, “Liverpool 2 - 1 Liverpool”, in BBC[2]:
      That settled the Merseysiders for a short while but it did not blunt the home side's spirit.

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

Old French[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Proto-Germanic *blundaz.

Pronunciation[edit]

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Adjective[edit]

blunt m (oblique and nominative feminine singular blunde)

  1. Alternative form of blont
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