Green’s Dictionary of Slang

dopey adj.²

dull, stupid, vapid; naïve.

1895		Fort Worth Gaz, (TX) 5 May 3/5: I’m getting dopey. Who else were there?
1904		Pacific Commercial Advertiser (HI) 20 Nov. 6/5: She took to her bed, pronounced life in general as ‘dopey’, and became more difficult than ever to live with.
1919		Aussie (France) 12 Mar. 6/1: O cripes, it makes me dopey to think about it.
1922		U. Sinclair They Call Me Carpenter 82: If that ain’t regular Bolsheviki talk, then I’m dopy.
1924		(con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. of Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: dopey. Dazed, bemused; lacking in vitality.
1926		S.J. Perelman in Marschall That Old Gang o’ Mine (1984) 18: Why not promise this dopey frog and then I can always laugh it off.
1930		R. Whitfield Green Ice (1988) 22: She had a pasty complexion, sharp features, and dopey eyes.
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 113: Those old dopey-looking guys must envy the gang here, young and free like they were.
1936		D. Stivens Tramp and Other Stories 79: Dopey ‘Chook’ is late again.
1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 270: The police are certain to suggest a mouthpice, a lawyer that is, for you, but don’t stand for that. They’ll get you some dopey old punk who they want to do a favour for.
1943		H.A. Smith Life in a Putty Knife Factory (1948) 204: Dopey, wasn’t I? But not too dopey. I wasn’t dumb enough to go back and tell Karl Bickel that Charlie said hello.
1951		J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye (1958) 55: I could see my mother going in Spaulding’s and asking the salesman a million dopey questions.
1957		J. Braine Room at the Top (1959) 110: It’s quite unmistakeable, that look – a sort of dopy joyfulness.
1967		N. Dunn Poor Cow 93: I thought ‘I’m with a dopey bloke here.’.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 30: If someone had shot that dopey bloody Cocky as a child, they would have done the world a great favour.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 71: If you’re a dopey sucker, you’ll just sit and watch all kind’s of mind-wrecking [...] movies.
1970		E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 550: Goddamn dopy, peapickin’ Swede.
1970		T. Southern Blue Movie (1974) 14: The same rear master-shot [...] of some cretin’s buttocks thrusting half-heartedly into some dopey girl’s black-stockinged honey-pot.
1985		J. Sullivan ‘Watching the Girls go by’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] You’ll be going with my dopey little brother over there.
1985		R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 97: He was going into the Kelly Club [...] and no pair of dopey bouncers would stop him.
1990		in D. Campbell That Was Business, This Is Personal 18: Two of them showed up [...] A big dopey one driving and a right smart geezer who was an inspector.
1991		R.G. Barrett Between the Devlin 10: ‘[T]here’s just some cops out there too fuckin’ dumb to take a sling. The dopey pricks’.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 11: The dopey auld cow; her wizened face glaikit with shock.
1999		R.G. Barrett Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] ‘You dopey fuckin moll,’ he bellowed.
2000		S. Maloney Big Ask 116: You think I’m joking, don’t you [...] Well, that just proves what a dopey cunt you really are.
2001		S. King Dreamcatcher 391: Bever, naked, except for his dopey boxers and even dopier jacket.
2010		K. Richards Life 111: His idealistic hope that ‘we can bring the blues to England’ [...] All that dopey sort of stuff.
2012		T. Piccirilli Last Kind Words 154: I’d never known anyone paranoid or dopey enough to really keep a pistol under their pillow.
2014		me-stepmums-too-fuckin-hot-mate at www.fakku.net 🌐 I was cleanin’ my closet you dopey cunt.
2021		C. Hammer Opal Country 66: [T[he same big dopey grin he always used to wear.

In compounds

dopey dilbert (n.) [the foolish perception of the proper name Dilbert]

a fool.

1966

R. Stone Hall of Mirrors (1987) 312: Why you dopey dilbert, just have a look in there and you’ll see.