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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

obtuse.

Blunt; not sharp, pointed, or acute in form.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/əbˈtjuːs/UK/-ˈtʃuːs/UK/əbˈt(j)us/General-American/ɑb-/General-American

  1. Blunt; not sharp, pointed, or acute in form.

  2. Blunt; not sharp, pointed, or acute in form. Blunt, or rounded at the extremity.

  3. Blunt; not sharp, pointed, or acute in form. Larger than one, and smaller than two right angles, equivalently more than 90° and less than 180°.

    specifically

  4. Blunt; not sharp, pointed, or acute in form. Obtuse-angled, having an obtuse angle.

  5. Intellectually dull or dim-witted.

  6. Of sound, etc.: deadened, muffled, muted.

  7. Indirect or circuitous.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English obtuse, from Latin obtūsus (“blunt, dull; obtuse”), past participle of obtundere, from obtundō (“to batter, beat, strike; to blunt, dull”), from ob- (“against”) (see ob-) + tundō (“to beat, strike; to bruise, crush, pound”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tewd-, from *(s)tew- (“to hit; to push”)). More at obtund.

verb/əbˈtjuːs/UK/-ˈtʃuːs/UK/əbˈt(j)us/General-American/ɑb-/General-American

  1. To dull or reduce an emotion or a physical state.

    obsolete · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English obtuse, from Latin obtūsus (“blunt, dull; obtuse”), past participle of obtundere, from obtundō (“to batter, beat, strike; to blunt, dull”), from ob- (“against”) (see ob-) + tundō (“to beat, strike; to bruise, crush, pound”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tewd-, from *(s)tew- (“to hit; to push”)). More at obtund.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.