dumb Dora
1
9.9
- noun
- /dʌm ˈdɔːrə/
- Slur
:
tonta (despectivo, anticuado, EE. UU.)
- He always falls for pranks, so they call him a dumb Dora.
Examples
-
And I'm no Dumb Dora.
-
Everyone laughed when she made a silly mistake, calling her a dumb Dora.
-
When she believed the outrageous rumor, her friends teased her for being a dumb Dora.
Synonyms
88
9.9
A rude word for someone who does something very stupid
3
7.5
A person who is not very smart and often makes silly mistakes
3
9.1
A person who often does foolish things or makes simple mistakes
2
8.7
A person who is not very smart
1
2.7
A person who is not intelligent and often makes poor choices
1
9.8
A rude word for a person who is very stupid
Antonyms
- Literature
8
7.4
A woman who knows a lot about people and herbs and people trust for advice
How Foolish
Surface Forms
Morphology
dumb + Dora
The adjective 'dumb' transparently conveys 'unintelligent', so part of the meaning is recoverable, but 'Dora' is a proper name with no lexical contribution and here functions as a culturally specific stereotypical label. The combination is an established slang/idiom (and somewhat dated), so the full sense 'an unintelligent or naive woman' is not fully predictable to a B1 learner without prior exposure.
Etymology
The phrase dumb Dora comes from 1920s comedy. One popular story says a comic character named Dora was shown as silly on stage and in cartoons, so people began calling a foolish woman a 'dumb Dora', and that's why the phrase means 'an unintelligent or naive woman'.