Meanings
- not comparableSlow-witted, stupid.
Up to now the guy's just a dim-bulb character who likes to dress up in a sailor suit and spoon creme broolay out of a bowl for a living.
1990, Joe Bob Briggs [pseudonym; John Irving Bloom], The Cosmic Wisdom of Joe Bob Briggs, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →ISBN, page 2633 more examples
In Snow White [and the Seven Dwarfs], [Walt] Disney and his staff met the challenge of creating believable characters. Each of the seven dwarfs, from sober-sided Doc to dim-bulb Dopey, had a distinct personality.
1966 December 23, “Walt Disney: Images of Innocence [obituary]”, in Time, archived from the original on 30 Apr 2009Well, long ago, a man named Aesop met a whole bunch of bossy, silly, funny, annoying, dim-bulb people, and he wanted to do something about it. He decided to write stories about these people, and end each story with a lesson […]
2007, Chris Jennings Dixon, editor, Lesson Plans for Teaching Writing, Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English, →ISBN, page 2It’s harder to care about someone dying when you actively want them to disappear from the screen. And when the film itself proceeds so straightforwardly, and you know that even [Jennifer Love] Hewitt’s dim-bulb boyfriend (Freddie Prinze Jr.) will survive, much of the fun is lost.
2017 October 27, Alex McLevy, “Making a Killing: The Brief Life and Bloody Death of the Post-Scream Slasher Revival”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 05 Mar 2018Synonyms: dim, dim-headed, dim-witted, dumb
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveSlow-witted, stupid.
Origin
Probably a reference to the use of a light bulb in cartoons and comics to indicate that a person has had a bright idea.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
dim-bulb. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dim-bulb
“dim-bulb.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dim-bulb. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dim-bulb,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dim-bulb.
Source: dim-bulb on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.