- 1
Blunt; not sharp, pointed, or acute in form.
- For we see a Feather or a Rush drawn along the Lip or Cheek, doth tickle; whereas a thing more obtuse, or a touch more hard, doth not.
- See then the quiver broken and decay'd, / In which are kept our arrows! Rusting there / In wild disorder, and unfit for use, / […] Their points obtuse, and feathers drunk with wine!
- 2
Blunt; not sharp, pointed, or acute in form.; Blunt, or rounded at the extremity.
- The Herb Pantagruelion hath a little Root somewhat hard and ruff, roundish, terminating in an obtuse and very blunt Point, and having some of its Veins, Strings or Filaments coloured with some spots of white, […]
- 3
Blunt; not sharp, pointed, or acute in form.; Having a measure between 90° and 180°.specifically
- If he is standing close beside me I know that our separate axes of vision will meet at an acute angle in the centre of his object, and if we are further apart, at an obtuser angle.
- 4
Blunt; not sharp, pointed, or acute in form.; Obtuse-angled, having an obtuse angle.
- Unless A lies in that part of a semi-infinite strip bounded by AB outside a semi-circle of diameter AB, the triangle is obtuse, so that the probability of getting an obtuse triangle is equal to 1.
- 5
Intellectually dull or dim-witted.
- When the elder Osborne gave what he called "a hint," there was no possibility for the most obtuse to mistake his meaning. He called kicking a footman downstairs a hint to the latter to leave his service.
- Be you a Remainer or a Leaver, you would have to be particularly obtuse not to see that [Theresa] May's hard Tory Brexit will cost this country and its families more than it can conceivably afford.
- 6
Of sound, etc.: deadened, muffled, muted.
- The ſenſe of the inteſtines, if exquiſite, wants a more gentle remedie; and if dull, a ſtronger: Alſo the ſenſes of the inteſtines are perceived by the courſe of diet; for thoſe that feed upon muſtard, or the like biting and more ſharp meat
- Another addition in Mr. [Joseph Emerson] Worcester's key to the same letter [e] is what he calls the short and obtuse sound, as in her, herd, fern, fervid. Some of these, also, for the sake of indicating the true sound, [John] Walker was ob
- 7
Indirect or circuitous.
- […] The Conchologist's First Book intends to do something different by describing both the shell and the soft parts of each creature together. The claim seems awfully trivial, I admit, and [Edgar Allan] Poe does press his point only by the
syn. obtuse-angled · blunt · dull
ant. bright · intelligent · on the ball · quick off the mark · quick-witted · sharp · smart · clear