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humdrum

[huhm-druhm]

Example Sentences Origin

adjective

lacking variety; boring; dull: a humdrum existence.

noun

humdrum character or routine; monotony.

monotonous or tedious talk.

Archaic. a dull, boring person.

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Humdrum is always a great word to know.

So is lollapalooza. Does it mean:

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.

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Origin:
1545–55; earlier humtrum, rhyming compound based on hum

Related forms

hum·drum·ness, noun

Synonyms
1. tedious, routine, mundane, tiresome.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To humdrum

Example Sentences

Some are aggressive achievers in otherwise humdrum industries.

More encouraging still is that such humdrum topics as septic systems and cow-dung fires rose to the top of the agenda.

But there's something about travel that turns the humdrum chore of keeping my clothes clean into an act of pure pleasure.

EXPAND

Some are aggressive achievers in otherwise humdrum industries.

More encouraging still is that such humdrum topics as septic systems and cow-dung fires rose to the top of the agenda.

But there's something about travel that turns the humdrum chore of keeping my clothes clean into an act of pure pleasure.

As the author herself points out in the paper, this is a fairly humdrum result.

The previously humdrum yard has become the ultimate space for entertaining and family fun.

The trick is in the lid of this otherwise humdrum machine.

There are few things in life more humdrum than the toothbrush.

They lead on the whole worthwhile but humdrum lives.

And the humdrum black on white color scheme is hardly befitting a gadget of such sound ergonomic engineering.

We have been leading a rather humdrum life for some time past.

The best available evidence suggests that he wrote humdrum political and economic reports.

Every year the technology industry promises a raft of revolutionary new products that will change our humdrum lives forever.

The birth of a fifth child may not be accompanied by the same hoopla as the first, but neither is it humdrum.

Behind him stretches a humdrum career including stints as trade minister and head of the tax police.

The humdrum truth is that the race is still wide open.

His central message, which has remained the same through global booms and recessions, is admirably humdrum.

Nevada now needs humdrum jobs more than glitzy casinos.

Film exhibition was until recently a humdrum business.

He used chain-link fence and other humdrum materials on the home's.

With more than a million iPhone users around the world hooked on bringing life to humdrum images with the.

Maybe no one feels threatened by the humdrum number-crunching of computers that figure payrolls or mimic wind tunnels.

She dreams of escaping her humdrum existence by marrying a handsome man and living happily ever after.

The effort to generate client-winning ideas starts in small and humdrum ways within the consultancy itself.

As usual, my practical, humdrum opinions didn't faze her.

Yet the humdrum business of sending discs through the post is still crucial.

Thomas' microphone seems humdrum in light of his other inventionary ambitions.

Along the way, this spinner of humdrum kitchen-sink.

The visitor arrives in a country which looks, on the face of things, to be normal in a humdrum multi-racial manner.

Although every so often he rouses himself from the humdrum of work to perform some resourceful bit of action.

The flaw afflicts a single gene in the cell, a gene that goes by the humdrum name of p53.

Nudging humdrum hydrogens ever-so-slightly with microwaves of a particular frequency reverses their magnetic characteristics.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

humdrum (ˈhʌmˌdrʌm)

—*adj*
1.	ordinary; dull

—n
2.	a monotonous routine, task, or person

[C16: rhyming compound, probably based on hum]

'humdrumness

—n

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

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

humdrum

"routine, monotonous," 1553, probably a reduplication of hum.

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Related Words

jog trot prosaic rum-dum slow

slow tiresome Walter Mitty

Matching Quote

"The amelioration of the world cannot be achieved by sacrifices in moments of crisis; it depends on the efforts made and constantly repeated during the humdrum, uninspiring periods, which separate one crisis from another, and of which normal lives mainly consist."

-Aldous Huxley

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