View synonyms for obtuseness

obtuseness

[ uhb-toos-nis, -tyoos- ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

lack of quickness, alertness, or sensitivity in perception, intellect, or feeling, often arising from conscious or unconscious resistance:
What I find very tiresome is your willful obtuseness—your refusal to admit facts that are well-known or arguments you have lost.
the quality or degree of bluntness in physical form; lack of sharpness or acuteness:
Platybasia is an abnormal obtuseness of the basal angle of the brain.
the fact or quality of being indistinctly felt or perceived, as pain or sound:
The chief indication of deep-seated, pervasive inflammation seems to be the obtuseness of the pain.

First recorded in 1640–50; obtuse ( def ) + -ness ( def )

The multi-step process with baseball writers and then the Veterans Committee is model of obtuseness.

It was also (p. 255) supposed valuable in cases of heaviness and obtuseness of intellect.

"What you are wearing now is pretty enough for anywhere," declared Sam Brewster, with masculine obtuseness.

I distrust all intellectual pretension that announces itself by obtuseness of palate!

"The flippancy of the half-educated is more obstructive to science than the obtuseness of the ignorant," said he.

She ached to tell her doleful brother what, with true masculine obtuseness, he never in the world would guess.

April 23, 2024inveterate

[in-vet-er-it ]

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