One of the mysteries of the English language finally explained.
1A short bar with a weight at each end, used typically in pairs for exercise or muscle-building.
- ‘You'll need a low- and high-cable-pulley machine with a straight bar attachment, a flat bench and a set of dumb-bells.’
- ‘For example, rather than a heavy barbell squat, just use light dumb-bells or a ball against the wall.’
- ‘All candidates will be following a special exercise programme, which involves using the rowing machine and stretching with dumb-bells.’
- ‘Hold dumb-bells under your legs with your palms facing each other and your elbows slightly bent.’
- ‘Acupressure treatment aids such as balls, dumb-bells and small cubes made of wood, believed to help improve blood circulation, are on offer for prices ranging from Rs.20 onwards.’
- ‘The ‘gymnasium’ you refer to is nothing more than a few dumb-bells under a tin shed.’
- ‘Squats, biceps curls, triceps extensions and even overhead presses with dumb-bells are all good candidates for unilateral moves.’
- ‘Objects, including a snooker cue, and a dumb-bell were thrown from a window, and the pistol was pointed at officers.’
- ‘Not too much imagery as such, just a hint of rawness with use of dumb-bells and sledgehammer to break the monotonous nature of gun-shot violence.’
- ‘If a kid of six or seven is pulling himself or herself up and swinging on bars, this is the equivalent of lifting 35 lb or 40 lb, but nobody in their right mind would give a 35 lb dumb-bell to a child.’
- ‘Cricket fans will be disappointed to see cricket admissions also excluded from the list, although footballs and dumb-bells make an entrance.’
- ‘A typical gymnasium in the city, say, just five years ago, would have been nothing more than a large shed with a huge pile of assorted metal weight-plates and dumb-bells in a corner.’
- ‘If your biceps feel absolutely fantastic, grab some heavy dumb-bells and pound them.’
- ‘Police have carried out tests on five bullets fired into Gray as he stopped to remove dumb-bells.’
- ‘Any line through the dumb-bell's centre of gravity, perpendicular to the main axis, is also an axis of rotation.’
- ‘Do the move with 5-to 10-pound dumb-bells in each hand.’
- 1.1as modifier Shaped like a dumbbell.‘a dumbbell molecule’
- ‘Sometimes, dumb-bell or ring-shaped mitochondria occur but with no evidence of associated membrane degeneration.’
- ‘In the case of the large uranium nucleus it could even wobble into a dumb-bell shape, from which it might occasionally split into two distinct smaller nuclei of slightly unequal size.’
- ‘The cup-marked stone shown below, in the Sma’ Glen, near Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland, is situated in a large man-made concave-shaped amphitheatre in the hills, and has a prominent dumb-bell shaped cup-mark on its surface.’
2North American informal A stupid person.
idiot, ass, halfwit, nincompoop, blockhead, buffoon, dunce, dolt, ignoramus, cretin, imbecile, dullard, moron, simpleton, clodView synonyms
- ‘She was really asleep in the car and David, the dumb-bell hadn't woken her up yet.’
Early 18th century: originally denoting an apparatus similar to that used to ring a church bell (but without the bell, so noiseless or ‘dumb’); dumbbell (sense 2) (dating from the 1920s) is an extended use by association with dumb ‘stupid’.
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