as exciting as watching paint dry
- idiom
- Informal
:
tan emocionante como ver secar la pintura
- I've never seen a game of chess move so slowly; it was as exciting as watching paint dry.
Examples
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The lecture was as exciting as watching paint dry.
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The documentary was as exciting as watching paint dry, so I nearly fell asleep halfway through.
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His speech was as exciting as watching paint dry and didn't hold the audience's attention at all.
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I find this movie as exciting as watching paint dry.
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The lecture was as exciting as watching paint dry, leaving many students struggling to stay awake.
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Waiting in the long line felt as exciting as watching paint dry, with nothing to do but stare at the walls.
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Her presentation on the history of paperclips was as exciting as watching paint dry, making it hard to focus.
Synonyms
721
1.0
Not interesting and making you feel tired or impatient
182
1.3
Not interesting or lively
87
4.4
Boring and repetitive, making you feel mentally tired
20
1.4
Not exciting and likely to make people bored
20
3.7
Not exciting or interesting
19
3.6
Without energy or interest and making people feel bored
14
6.5
So boring that you stop paying attention
14
4.0
Not having new or interesting ideas
14
5.3
Something that is boring because it has no variety
9
6.5
Not exciting and having little variety
7
3.5
Not interesting or exciting
5
8.1
Not interesting and making you feel bored
3
3.2
Not interesting or exciting
2
8.5
Making you feel very tired and empty inside
2
7.0
Makes you feel tired or bored because it is repetitive
1
6.9
Making something feel very dull and boring
Not interesting to watch, read or listen to
Does not interest, excite, or make people feel energetic
Not bright in color and not very interesting
Making people feel bored
Causes people to lose interest because it is dull
Boring and not interesting to think about or feel
Not causing excitement or interest
Antonyms
How Exciting
102
3.6
∞
1.0
∞
1.0
182
1.3
- Informal
Surface Forms
Morphology
as + exciting + as + watching + paint + dry
The simile is compositionally built from the comparative frame 'as ... as' plus the literal image 'watching paint dry'; a B1 learner who knows 'watching', 'paint' and 'dry' can infer that watching paint dry is a slow, tedious activity and so the phrase means 'very boring'. This is a transparent, image-based comparison (common cross-linguistically) rather than an arbitrary idiom, so the meaning is derivable from the constituents.
Etymology
As exciting as watching paint dry comes from a simple, boring picture: someone watching wet paint on a wall as it slowly dries. Because watching paint dry has almost no action, people use the phrase to say something is 'very boring'.