Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a fool.

1984		L.A. Times 10 Jan. CC†/VI: Talking about reaching for a gag, Dumbski.
1997		Pistone & Woodley Donnie Brasco [film script] You’re calling me a dumbski? You know who you’re talkin’ to?
2005		‘Gut Feeling’ at coldbloodedgames.typepad.com 8 May 🌐 A lotta jailhouse ink means a lot of fuck ups and I usually wouldna given a dumski like him the time of day.

see dumb-ass n. (1)

see separate entries.

see dumb-ass adj.

see separate entries.

(UK juv./N.Z./US) a fool.

1951		Newark Advocate (OH) 10 Oct. 15/5: The latter [team] aren’t controlled by dumbums who’d break up an infield to get a slightly spavined infielder.
1969		J. Hibberd Dimboola (2000) 94: Drop dead, dumb-bum.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 41/1: dumb-bum dolt; eg ‘C’mon, dumb-bum, concentrate and you might manage to hit the ball.’.
2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 dumbum adj. person acting stupidly.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

1. (US) a fool.

1910		Twin Falls News (ID) 4 June 6/3: [I] let Alaine work on that dumb bunny of an Ab.
1921		N.Y. Tribune 21 Sept. 10/5: As we interpret the lingo of the younger Scott Fitzgerald set, a dumb bunny is a goof with a part-time bean.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl. 16: dumb. Stupid. Hence, dumb-bell, dumb bunny.
1931		B. Niles Strange Brother (1932) 254: Peggy, who was so often what June called a ‘dumb bunny’.
1940		W.R. Burnett High Sierra in Four Novels (1984) 316: I got tired of her; she was a dumb rabbit; so I give her the air.
1940		S. Longstreet Decade 312: It stinks, this alki [...] The dumb bunnies will drink it.
1960		W. Styron Set This House on Fire 374: Where do you think I learned them, you dumb bunny.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 10: There ought to be a law to protect the dumb bunnies from spivs like Thumper.
1974		C. Loken Come Monday Morning 96: That big dumb bunny never did have no couth at all.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 130: Dumb makes an excellent prefix or intensifier. For example: dumb-ass, dumbbell, dumb blonde, dumb bunny, dumb cluck, dumb Dora, dumb-dumb.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 204: He came to Vegas like a dumb bunny, and moves like that will get him dropped.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 351: You dumb bunnies dumped a kidnap suspect.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1937

C. Odets Golden Boy II i: Get me [...] some fights with contenders, not with dumb-bunny club fighters.

1. (orig. US) a fool.

1922		Palladium-Item (Richmond, IN) 2 June 6/1: I have vainly sought to find the dumb cluck who invented the eating of soup rom the side of a spoon.
1931		V. Carter ‘University of Missouri Sl.’ in AS VI:3 204: dumb cluck: unintelligent, not bright person.
1947		F. Brown Fabulous Clipjoint (1949) 30: This Bassett didn’t look like a detective, but he wasn’t a dumb cluck at all.
1952		(con. 1910s) ‘Harry Grey’ Hoods (1953) 5: Hey, Noodles, did you hear the dumb cluck?
1953		I. Hamilton Till Human Voices Wake Us 86: Great easy-going dumbclucks.
1960		E. De Roo Big Rumble 63: I’m not a dumb cluck like you.
1971		T. Murphy Morning After Optimism in Plays: 3 (1994) Scene ii: He must be one right stupid dumb-cluck.
1989		(con. 1960s) M. Kingston Tripmaster Monkey 273: You dumb cluck.
1995		R. Campanella It’s Good to Be Alive 78: I thought you gave him the other dice, you dumb cluck!
2005		J. Bedwell China Marine 11: On the downside I was young and in many ways a dumb cluck.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1939		Detroit Free Press (MI) 17 Sept. 8/2: ‘Anybody knows what those words [i.e. jazz slang] mean — anybody but a dumb cluck girl’.
1953		I. Hamilton Till Human Voices Wake Us 169: Not that Jock was an ordinary dumbcluck union official.
1959		A. Zugsmith Beat Generation 126: One of these days, her dumb cluck ex-husband might see Artie and her.
2003		K.A. Kitchen On the Reliability of the Old Testament 467: Tented kingdoms may be unknown to dumb-cluck socio-anthropologists, but they are solidly attested.

3. used as v. to act stupidly.

1932

Quad-City Times (Davenport, IA) 6 Apr. 2/1: She flopped on snappy comeback / Dumb-clucked on what to say.

see dumbfuck n.

1. (also dumb Mabel) a pretty, but empty-headed woman, often a member of the chorus line; ; also attrib.

1920		Baltimore Sun (MD) 20 Feb. 13/1: The new defender of the supposedly dumb dora bases his conclusions on a survey [etc].
1922		Wash. Times 16 Apr. 47/1: If anyone should tell the flapper she was the latest development of feminism [...] she would [...] present one with a well simulated Dumb Dora look.
1930		E.A. Clancy ‘Flies on the Ceiling’ in Detective-Dragnet May 🌐 She’s one of these little blond babies [...] what do you think that dumb Mabel did.
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 561: Dorgan, who died in 1929, was the begetter of apple-sauce, twenty-three, skiddoo, ball-and-chain (for wife), cake-eater, dumb Dora, dumbbell (for stupid person), nobody home, and you said it.
1940		J.T. Farrell Father and Son 218: Bill says he loves me but that I’m a dumb Dora.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 172: A Dumb Dora, some dizzy drunkette so prestoned you don’t even know if she’s alive.

2. a stupid person.

1926		N. Fleischer in Ring Nov. 10: dumb dora -- A stupid fellow.
1940		E.F. Frazier Negro Youth 106: [T]eachers usually set up some dumb-Dora or bum as the best liked and most popular individual.
1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 227: Dora (Dumb Dora) and Dumbo or Dumbellina (from Disney’s cartoon elephant and dumbbell) are heard.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 130: Dumb makes an excellent prefix or intensifier. For example: dumb-ass, dumbbell, dumb blonde, dumb bunny, dumb cluck, dumb Dora, dumb-dumb.

3. attrib. use of sense 2.

1997

S. Horowitz Queens of Comedy 117: Private Benjamin showed the seamy, painful side of Dumb Dora femininity [...] She adopts a sexually compliant Dumb Dora persona.

see separate entries.

(US) a fool.

1859		Tiffin Wkly Trib. 1 July 3/3: Lewis Schlesigner, known as the ‘utta Percha Pen Man’, has been arrested [...] for swindling. he tried to come the ‘dumb Isaac’ on Mr J.F. Wooster.
1872		St Joseph Gaz. (MI) 22 Dec. 4/2: The prostrate law-breaker [...] playing the ‘dumb Isaac’ to perfection.
1885		Fort Wayne Jrnl-Gaz. (IN) 7 June 8/2: ‘Don’t try to come the dumb Isaac over me’.
1906		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 34: He had a line of bull that would make the book agent look like a dumb Isaac.
1916		Dly Ardmoreite (OK) 20 Oct. 4/2: [headline] A Dumb Isaac.
1923		Wodehouse Leave it to Psmith (1993) 568: You’re the sort of dumb Isaac that couldn’t find a bass-drum in a telephone booth.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 130: Dumb makes an excellent prefix or intensifier. For example: [...] dumb Isaac, dumb ox, and rumdum.

(US) foolish, stupid; thus n. dumbnut a fool.

1960		Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD) 17 Jan. 4/5: The dumb-nuts, the leftists, the soul-less communists, the alcoholics, the dope users, the hand-outer.
1977		R. Coover Public Burning (1979) 170: Greenglass, by comparison, was just some dumbnuts YCL on-the-make Army kid.
a.1986		D. Tate Bravo Burning 3: He asked for and got...straightleg dumb-nuts infantry [HDAS].
2012		F. McCarthy ‘Some Protection’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] Miller hears the ASIO dumbnuts whispering.

(US) a fool, also attrib.

1928		Washington Tubbs II 29 June [synd. cartoon] Why, you dumb onion, she ordered you out of the house.
1929		D. Hammett Red Harvest (1965) 24: What kind of dumb onion do you take me for?
1930		Katzenjammer Kids 21 Sept. [synd. cartoon] As a couple of dumb onions dese two take der cake.
1952		Chicago Trib. 25 Nov. 16/2: After G.O.P victory there, Virginia need no longer call herself the dumb onion state.

(US) a foolish (young) person.

1922		Ogden Standard Examiner 12 Apr. 6/5: I got my glimmers on Tommie Smith. He had a dumb-otis with him.
1922		W.L. Purcell Them was the Good Old Days 90: Then we hooked a dumb-otis and scandal-walker for the yellow dimbox, and I blouse to the homehouse to dingle-dangle.

see dumb bunny

see separate entries.

(US) (usu. milit.) a fool.

1968		Fitchberg Sentinel (MA) 7 May 6/1: He’d see plebe cadet Foley [...] and chide him, ‘Hey Dumb Smack, what’re you doing’.
1977		(con. 1950s) H.C. Lyon Tenderness 17: ‘Wipe that smile off your face, Dumb Smack!’ was an often repeated negative reinforcement [at West Point].
2002		S. Harrison Environmental Systems Distributing 🌐 If you know of a better deal elsewhere (I really doubt it), don’t be a dumbsmack -- go get it!

1. a fool.

1927		Dly Trib. (Waisconsin Rapids, WI) 30 June 10/1: Being an obliging sort of dumb sock, Hank did as requested.
1930		J.A. Russell ‘Colgate University Sl.’ in AS V:3 238: Dumb sock: a person who is not very bright. ‘That farmer is a dumb sock.’.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 294: Studs ran down, and pulled the dumbsock aside.

2. a Swede or any Scandinavian immigrant.

1964

in DARE.

(US) a fool.

1981		(con. 1963) P. Conroy Lords of Discipline 129: Pop off, dumb squat.
2001		J.G. Lankford Sierra Times 7 Oct. 🌐 But anybody who can’t sustain a good lying pretense in that part of the world is a dumbsquat, worthy of contempt, the kind of dimwit who would pay a whole herd of camels for a short bag of stale dates.

(US campus) a fool.

1974		Selma Times-Jrnl (AL) 22 Jan. 3/1: In fact, we actually had most grown-ups lumped into one large pigeon hole labeled dumb-wad.
1981		(con. 1963) P. Conroy Lords of Discipline 150: Clean your loathsome bodies, dumbwads.
2002		Dita M. Intensity Journal 26 Feb. 🌐 The main reason for buying them is because Steve is a total dwanky dumbwad who doesn’t know how to properly brush his teeth.

(US) a fool, also attrib.

1913		Eve. Star (Wash., DC) 23 Mar. 31/2: The manager wondered what sort of dumb-wit this other man was.
1926		Capital Times (Madison, WI) 4 June 24/2: It is a poor dumb-wit who knows no difference between a La Follette Progressive and a Blaine Progressive.
1932		Oakland Trib. (CA) 1 May Mag. & Fiction section 5/2: ‘Probably even you dumbwit men would recognise that’.
1933		in Goodstone Pulps (1970) 105: Any dumbwit you drag to the altar will be going for a cleaning instead of a honeymoon.
2002		Betty I-Resign.com posting 25 Jul. 🌐 I have been in recruitment for 2 years and am not a ‘dumbwit’ as some of you like to think (I actually have a 1st class BSc Hons) but like yourselves struggled to find work in my field and ended up in recruitment.

see separate entry.

1. (orig. US) a fool, thus dumbheaded, foolish.

1887		H. Frederic Seth’s Brother’s Wife 339: Over in Jay we wouldn’t elect sech a dumb-head to be a hog-reeve.
1889		South Wales Echo 10 Oct. 4/1: She must despise me [...] Such a dumb-head as I must seem to her.
1891		St Paul Dly Globe (MN) 28 Jan. 8/2: Did the Democrats select a weak, vain man, and a selfish dumbhead?
1907		Roscommon Messenger 16 Mar. 5/5: He criticised the action of some ‘dumb-heads’ who were influenced by the occupiers of land against allowing him to get sites for cottages.
1907		Bystander 27 Nov. 434/2: He was a dense, dumb-headed man, like all the rest of them.
1908		Willmar Tribune (St Paul, MN) 18 Mar. 3/5: Walter, you lazy dumbhead.
1912		Hendon & Finchley Times 19 July 8/4: Till the drum major said, / Please remember, dumbhead / That the time is toot-two, not forps-forps.
1917		Eve. World (NY) 28 July 10/3: [cartoon caption] That’s jes like th’ dumbhead: Grr! How I despise that man!
1923		R. McAlmon Village 145: Walter was a dumbhead.
1934		B. Traven Death Ship 248: Only dumb-heads and oxen heave coal.
1939		Dly Mirror 25 May 12/2: Now find an answer to that, you dumbheads. I think you’re backward in your history.
1945		Good Morning (London) 31 May 2/1: Editor: Did you get am interview with Lord Dumbhead? Reporter: Yes, but he had nothing to say.
1953		S. Bellow Augie March (1996) 35: You heard me, you dumbhead!
1953		Dly Mirror 16 Nov. 4/3: Too often our bosses are deadheads. dumbheads and blockheads.
1960		C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 67: We gotta go somewhere, dumbhead!
1975		Spradley & Mann Cocktail Waitress 52: Spit it out, dumbhead.
1978		Aberdeen Eve. Exp. 14 Feb. 22/5: Leon Spinks [is] not exactly dumb-headed, but, unlike Ali, hot the kind ot man who would feel at ease at a White House cocktail party.
1983		S. King Christine 47: Even a little nine-year-old dumbhead like me could see it was never going to be all right for Captain Beefheart again.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 130: Dumb makes an excellent prefix or intensifier. For example: [...] dumbhead.
2002		H.M. Magnuson Never Too Old a Victim 324: ‘What does one dumbhead know? Put on your shirt and tie and come with me.’ The not-so-dumbhead said, ‘If I told them to hire you, they would.’.
2008		Eve. Herald (Dublin) 10 June 38/1: This dreary, self-important documentary was full of dumb-headed generalisations like this.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1899		Labor World (Duluth, MN) 28 Oct. 1/3: The dumbhead voters of the Mississipppi Valley will now have a chance to study the beauties of capitalism.
1938		E.S. Gardner ‘Leg Man’ in Ruhm Hard-Boiled Detective (1977) 228: Of all the dumbhead plays you’ve made, that’s the worst.
1969		D. Pendleton Executioner (1973) 74: Spare me the dumbhead details.
1989		Sun. World (Dublin) 17 Sept. 8/5: Some dumbhead designer starts talking aabout the relaxed feeling.

the vagina.

1793

Bacchanalian Mag. 50: Original and selected Toasts and Sentiments [...] Roast meat for the speaking mouthand raw for the dumb.

the vagina; thus work the dumb oracle, to have sexual intercourse.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 17: Argument, m. [...] 2. The female pudendum; ‘the dumb oracle’.

the vagina.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 98: Double-six, m. The female pudendum; ‘the dumb-squint’.

(US campus) the penis.

1998

Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 3: dumbstick – penis. From Ally McBeal: ‘Oh, cut him some slack; he’s got the dumb-stick handicap’.

a venereal bubo in the groin.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

(US) extremely stupid.

1973		Sheboygan Press (WI) 29 Oct. 12/1: Dumb as a box rocks, the cattle brains of the public [...] reacted exactly as the media expected.
1980		Des Moines Trib. (IO) 4 June 6/3: Dean said that he and his wife, mary, ‘were dumb as a box of rocks’ about house-building.
1991		El Paso Times (TX) 31 May Tiempo 6/2: The cop on the case is dumb as a box of rocks.
2003		Simon & Burns ‘Ebb Tide’ Wire ser. 2 ep. 1 [TV script] White boys, I love ’em. Dumb as a box of rocks.
2014		M. McBride Swollen Red Sun 179: He thought about the big baby. Dumber than a bucket of screwdrivers.
2019		Globe-Gaz. (Mason City, IA) 9 June C1/1: At 18, my ,ife had just begun, and I was dumb as a box of rocks.

see under oyster n.

(US) very stupid.

2021

T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 115: ‘You think I’m gonna let them poison my son like they did my sister, you’re dumber than a box of cocks’.

of a beggar, to pose as a mute in order to extract money.

1852

‘The Cadger’s Ball’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 148: Dick, wot ‘dumbs it’ round the nation, / Had all the jaw among the fair.