dumb as a doornail
- idiom
- Offensive
:
más tonto que una puerta
- After failing the quiz, he felt dumb as a doornail and couldn't believe how simple the questions were.
So you'd, you'd have to be dumb as a doornail to not realize that you're talking to ACIA officer at that point.
- So you'd, you'd have to be dumb as a doornail to not realize that you're talking to ACIA officer at that point.
Examples
-
When she failed to understand the joke, her friends teased her, saying she was dumb as a doornail.
-
The proposal was so poorly thought out that everyone agreed it was dumb as a doornail.
-
Dumb as a doornail.
Fiction book (2001)
Synonyms
945
3.2
Not able to understand or learn things quickly
505
1.3
Not showing good sense and making unwise choices
115
4.4
Very silly and showing bad judgment
24
3.5
Very stupid and not using common sense
16
7.1
Not very intelligent and too naive about complex things
8
8.0
Very stupid and not thinking clearly
6
5.6
Not quick to understand or learn
6
5.3
Not very smart and slow to understand things
4
7.9
Slow to understand simple ideas or instructions
3
9.9
Very slow to understand or react
1
7.9
Being very foolish and showing poor judgment
1
8.4
Acting in a silly, thoughtless way
1
8.4
Very silly and not showing good sense
1
8.8
Not very smart or sensible
1
9.9
Very foolish and not sensible or responsible
So surprised that you cannot speak or move
Very stupid and not able to think clearly
Being very foolish and clumsy in how someone thinks or acts
Very foolish and acting without thinking
Not very smart and likely to make poor choices
Slow to understand or learn things
Slow to understand things and often acting foolishly
Very foolish and showing little sense
Being stubborn and not clever
Very foolish and not showing good sense
A person who is a little foolish or not very smart
A person who is foolish and lacks common sense
Antonyms
How Foolish
Surface Forms
Morphology
The intensifying simile relies on the fixed phrase 'doornail', an archaic/obscure noun that does not contribute a literal sense of 'extremely foolish'; knowing 'dumb', 'as', 'a' and even the parts of 'doornail' would not allow a B1 learner to derive the idiomatic meaning. The expression is culturally and historically bound (and related to variants like 'dead as a doornail'), so its meaning is unpredictable from its constituents and therefore opaque to learners.
Etymology
Dumb as a doornail may come from the old image of a heavy doornail hammered so flat it could not move or make a sound. So, because dumb used to mean 'silent' or 'not able to speak', the picture of a nailed-down, quiet thing became a way to say someone is completely unresponsive or very foolish.