blunt

Adjective

blunt (comparative blunter, superlative bluntest)

1. Having a thick edge or point; not sharp.
   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv]:

     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: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     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.
   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v]:

     His wits are not so blunt.

3. Abrupt in address; plain; unceremonious; wanting the forms of civility; rough in manners or speech.

   I was taken aback by the blunt admission that he had never liked my company.

   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     a plain, blunt man

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.

Noun

blunt (plural blunts)

1. A fencer's practice foil with a soft tip.
2. A short needle with a strong point.
3. (smoking, slang, US) A marijuana cigar.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:marijuana cigarette

   • 2004, Martin Torgoff, “The Temple of Accumulated Error”, in Can’t Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age, 1945–2000, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 461:

     […] 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!”

4. (UK, slang, archaic, uncountable) money

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:money

   • 1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, chapter 10, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC:

     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.

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.

   • 2011 January 12, Saj Chowdhury, “Liverpool 2 - 1 Liverpool”, in BBC‎:

     That settled the Merseysiders for a short while but it did not blunt the home side's spirit.

   • 2022 August 24, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Rail strikes deadlock”, in RAIL, number 964, page 3:

     I'm not saying that thousands of folk are not being inconvenienced, because they most certainly are, but the impact of strikes on government has been blunted.

Declension

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.