gormless
1
9.9
- adjective
- /ˈɡɔːmləs/
- Offensive
:
estúpido
- Despite being told repeatedly, he remained gormless about the instructions and continued to make mistakes.
- looking gormless
Examples
-
Tell him how much trouble he's in, detective, and watch his gormless fucking expression change.
-
Rather than engaging the gormless cavillers or pursuing a slap fight with Tallbloke, why not step away from the keyboard and have a couple of beers?
Blog text (18) -
Why you look so gormless?
-
Yeah, you, you pair of gormless twats!
-
I had noticed that one of the English papers, in its American coverage, had described MTV as "the gormless pop video channel."
Fiction book (1995) -
While I had the OED out, I looked up "gormless," just on a hunch.
Fiction book (1995) -
This morning, I heard two particularly gormless listeners voice their opinions on CBC Radio One.
Blog text (9) -
It's a gormless, chafing, unquestionably horrid little waste of time.
Blog text (20) -
The day before, it had been obvious what one paper meant by its reference to someone as the new supremo of programming at ITV, an English television channel that is considered at least marginally less gormless than MTV.
Fiction book (1995) -
The new employee seemed gormless when he struggled to understand the simple tasks assigned to him.
Synonyms
138
8.1
Not smart or quick to understand
28
6.5
Slow to understand and not quick to learn
24
3.5
Very stupid and not using common sense
19
6.7
Not very smart and likely to act in a silly way
19
2.8
Slow to notice or react to things
9
6.8
Not showing good sense or judgment
8
3.3
Not smart or slow to understand
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
6.7
Not quick to understand or think
3
6.3
Silly, not very intelligent and not serious
2
7.5
Showing very little sense or intelligence
1
9.9
A person who is not very smart or sensible
1
9.3
Not very smart and acting in a foolish way
1
8.1
Not quick to understand or learn new things
1
7.2
Silly and slow to understand things
1
8.8
Not very smart or sensible
1
9.9
A person who is not very quick to understand things
1
8.4
Very silly and not showing good sense
1
9.9
Slow to understand things and often acting foolishly
A rude name for a person who is slow to understand
Showing little intelligence and only simple ideas
Pleasant and friendly but not very smart
Not smart and slow to understand
Slow to understand things
Slow to understand or act because they are tired
Slow to understand or learn things
Showing very little intelligence or common sense
Slow and crude in thinking and behavior
Not very quick to understand things
Antonyms
How Stupid
- Offensive
115
4.4
- Offensive
∞
1.0
- Offensive
1
9.9
- Offensive
3
6.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
gormless = gorm (opaque) = gorm + less
Although '-less' is a productive negative suffix, the root 'gorm' is obscure and dialectal, so learners cannot reliably infer the meaning.
Etymology
The word gormless comes from an old British dialect word gorm meaning 'sense' or 'judgment' and the ending -less meaning 'without'. So gormless literally means 'without sense', which is why we use it for someone foolish or dull-witted.