Words at Play : Top 10 Sophisticated Insults
Definition:
stupid or unintelligent : not able to think clearly or to understand what is obvious or simple
Example:
"We are – or so we like to tell ourselves – a nation of animal lovers. And like most lovers, it turns out that we are perennially obtuse and perpetually baffled by what the objects of our affection are trying to tell us." – Lucy Mangan, TheGuardian.com, November 3, 2013
About the Word:
Obtuse has an ancestor in the Latin obtusus, meaning "blunt; dull." In addition to the "lacking sharpness" sense of obtuse, there is the mathematical obtuse (e.g. an obtuse angle measures between 90 and 180 degrees) and the medical obtuse ("not sharp or acute," as in an obtuse pain).
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