How to Use dumb in a Sentence

dumb

1 of 2 adjective
  • It was a dumb idea in the first place.
  • He was born deaf and dumb.
  • He just stood there with a dumb grin on his face.
  • It was dumb luck that we found this place at all.
  • I'm not dumb enough to believe that.
  • His success is just a matter of dumb luck.
  • This is one of the dumbest TV shows I've ever seen.
  • Browsers are no longer dumb pipes.
    — Tor Constantino, Forbes.com, 13 Aug. 2025
  • The dumb ones and the smart ones.
    — Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 20 Apr. 2026
  • The boy is dumb and full of cum.
    — Zak Cheney-Rice, Vulture, 13 May 2026
  • Was the fall of Rome this dumb?
    — Nikki McCann Ramirez, Rolling Stone, 22 Sep. 2025
  • And what is dumber than a fart?
    — Derek Lawrence, Entertainment Weekly, 28 May 2026
  • This is a dumb move by both parties.
    — ABC News, 22 Mar. 2026
  • God, this is such a dumb story.
    — Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 17 Sep. 2025
  • Smart dumb gets better with it.
    — Arkansas Online, 14 Aug. 2025
  • People do dumb stuff like this all the time.
    — Amber Harding Outkick, FOXNews.com, 28 Apr. 2026
  • The dumb ones get naked; the smart ones puppeteer them.
    — Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 20 Apr. 2026
  • He's called it dumb, ridiculous.
    — Dana Taylor, USA Today, 24 Feb. 2026
  • Nate Bargatze is not a dumb guy.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 28 May 2026
  • Not strong enough to stay in the bunch, and too dumb to pack it up and go home.
    — Frederick Dreier, Outside, 28 Sep. 2025
  • This was like the dumbest, like, whoa, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa.
    — Outside Online, 30 July 2025
  • This take is so dumb that it was held back in the second grade three times.
    — Brian Moylan, Vulture, 21 Jan. 2026
  • Dumbbells might not be so dumb after all.
    — David Hochman, Forbes.com, 18 June 2026
  • But with this crowd, the dumber the better.
    — Bill Goodykoontz, AZCentral.com, 2 Dec. 2025
  • And then quite a bit of dumb bits, like really dumb bits.
    — Eric Ducker, Los Angeles Times, 6 Feb. 2026
  • On the one hand, Troll 2 is dumber than rocks.
    — Savannah Salazar, Vulture, 6 Dec. 2025
  • There’s a special sort of bliss that comes from a dumb action game.
    — Christopher Cruz, Rolling Stone, 20 Oct. 2025
  • And in 2025, that might be the smartest dumb thing of all.
    — Arkansas Online, 14 Aug. 2025
  • These dumb little kids were freaking bored.
    — Emma Seiwell, New York Daily News, 8 May 2026
  • Critiquing a careless turnover or dumb shot?
    — Joseph Dycus, Mercury News, 25 Dec. 2025

dumb

2 of 2 verb
  • Worse, the country’s attempts to fix the schools have tended to dumb them down, experts say.
    — New York Times, 1 Mar. 2020
  • Cheap shots, but hey, some reboots should dumb-shame their predecessors.
    — Darren Franich, EW.com, 5 Jan. 2023
  • Many thought Ross wanted girls to pretend to like things to get a guy to crush on them, or even dumb themselves down so guys can feel like teachers.
    — Carolyn Twersky, Seventeen, 6 Nov. 2018
  • And are cultural institutions in danger of dumbing down in an effort to draw crowds?
    — Clive Martin, CNN, 12 May 2017
  • Auto-aim system does just enough legwork to let players focus on speed without completely dumbing the game down.
    — Sam MacHkovech, Ars Technica, 7 Nov. 2019
  • One concern has been whether doctors might have to dumb down their notes for patients, or whether patients might get too distressed by reading what their doctors say about them.
    — Laura Landro, WSJ, 28 Feb. 2017
  • The filmmakers wanted all of the satire, but dumbed it down enough to appeal to a mass audience in the cutthroat summer blockbuster season.
    — cleveland.com, 15 Feb. 2018
  • Even before 2016, some critics accused the GOP of self-consciously dumbing itself down.
    — Charles J. Sykes, Time, 5 Oct. 2017
  • Is the technology dumbing things down, pandering to the selfie generation, and preventing visitors from being in the moment?
    — Julia Buckley, Condé Nast Traveler, 12 Dec. 2017
  • From prestige dramas like Anatomy of a Scandal (the #1 English-language Netflix show around the world right now) to dumb reality series.
    — Andy Meek, BGR, 28 Apr. 2022
  • In order to save time, space, or money, audio companies will often take the design of a larger, more expensive device and dumb it down slightly to make a product that's more accessible, and probably better for most of us.
    — Parker Hall, WIRED, 6 May 2021
  • One former Pompeo aide attributed the success to Pompeo's keen ability to distill complex issues and convey them clearly and directly, without dumbing them down.
    — Jeremy Diamond, CNN, 14 Mar. 2018
  • Warner Brothers waits to be subsumed by Netflix or Paramount, cinemas are losing customers to streaming, and franchise entertainment continues to dumb us all down.
    — Michael O’Donnell, The Atlantic, 10 Feb. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dumb.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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