Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Having the wit of an ox; dull in intellect; heavy-headed; stupid.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Stupid; dull.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective obsolete
stupid ;dull
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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The total guff he buys is instantly snapped up by beef-witted city-boy cretins to distract them from the emptiness.
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Leon had apparently managed to corner some poor woman and was no doubt sharing whatever dumb-ass theory his beef-witted brain stem was promulgating at the moment.
Old Mans War 2005
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The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!
Troilus and Cressida 2004
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Even so, my nephew Gerald (the present Duke of Denver) is nothing but a beef-witted English squire, and my niece Mary was flighty and foolish enough till she married a policeman and settled down.
Unnatural Death Sayers, Dorothy L.Lord Peter 03 1988
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Never was among such a beef-witted set of addlepates since I was born.
Austin and His Friends Frederic H. Balfour
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Purple with Port, beef-witted, tyrannical, intolerant, ignorant, never happy unless when on horseback or drunk, nor looking happy then.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 37, November, 1860 Various
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Even so, my nephew Gerald (the present Duke of Denver) is nothing but a beef-witted English squire, and my niece Mary was nighty and foolish enough till she married a policeman and settled down.
Clouds of Witness Sayers, Dorothy L. 1927
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The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!
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It's for beef-witted squires and blear-eyed people like yourselves -- brutish, callous.
Gone to Earth Mary Gladys Meredith Webb 1904
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Then I did meekly remind her of her flirtatious preferences for the young beef-witted London chaps, and her incertitude and disdainful capriciousness towards myself, who was not a beetlehead or an obtuse, but a cultivated native gentleman with high-class university degree, and an oratorical flow of language which was infallibly to land me upon the pinnacle of some tip-top judicial preferment in the Calcutta High Court of Justice.
Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. F. Anstey 1895
hernesheir commented on the word beef-witted
Mongrel beef-witted Lord. - Troilus and Cressida, II., i., 14
August 20, 2014
qms commented on the word beef-witted
Shakespeare's "T&C" is the mother lode of insult. Check out the beginning of Act V, Scene I.
August 20, 2014
Gammerstang commented on the word beef-witted
(adjective) - (1) Having an inactive brain, thought to be from eating beef.
--John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopædia and New Glossary, 1902
(2) Beef-headed; beef-brained; hence beef-wittedness.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 15, 2018