dull as dishwater

dish·wa·ter

[dish-waw-ter, -wot-er]
noun
1.
water in which dishes are, or have been, washed.
2.
dull as dishwater/ditchwater, extremely dull; boring.

Origin:
1475–85; dish + water

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source Link To dull as dishwater
Collins
World English Dictionary
dishwater (ˈdɪʃˌwɔːtə) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
 
n
1.  water in which dishes and kitchen utensils are or have been washed
2.  something resembling this: that was dishwater, not coffee

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source
00:10
Dull as dishwater is always a great word to know.
So is gobo. Does it mean:
the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.
a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.
Slang Dictionary

(as) dull as dishwater definition


  1. mod.
    very dull. : Life can be as dull as dishwater.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source
American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

dull as dishwater

Boring, tedious, as in That lecture was dull as dishwater. The original simile, dull as ditchwater, dating from the 1700s, alluded to the muddy water in roadside ditches. In the first half of the 1900s, perhaps through mispronunciation, it became dishwater, that is, the dingy, grayish water in which dirty dishes had soaked.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
Cite This Source
Copyright © 2013 Dictionary.com, LLC. All rights reserved.
  • Please Login or Sign Up to use the Recent Searches feature
FAVORITES
RECENT