dumbbell

plural dumbbells · alternative rare dumb-bell · alternative misspelling dumbell

1. A weight training implement consisting of a short bar with weight counterpoised on each end.

   He was exercising with the dumbbells in gym class today.

   3 more examples

   He also had a room strewn with the toys of the trade and what-have-you: ropes and ironmongery, buoyancy aid and bagpipes, fetid socks and half-eaten haggises, dumbbells and ski-instructor sweaters.

   1997, Pete McDonald, Climbing Lessons: Inside Outdoor Education, page 40

   On the map Gansu is shaped like a dumbbell lying obliquely from east to west. Its best known city is Lanjhou, the capital, and also the gateway to the Silk Road. But we did not go there; we were heading for a relatively unknown city a few hundred miles away from Lanjhou, called Tianshuei.

   2007, “The Years before the End of the War”, in A Girl From Shanghai: The Story of Lillian Hsu, a Medical Geneticist, a NTU Medical College Alumna, →ISBN, →OCLC, pages 35–36

   Her eternal quest was for self-improvement, underscored also by the dumbbells she hoisted well before Jane Fonda made it fashionable.

   2026 May 24, Alexandra Jacobs, “How Marilyn Monroe Gave a Smart Gloss to Her Image”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

2. obsoleteA bell with no clapper, used as bell-striking practice or to strike as a form of physical exercise
3. derogatoryslangA stupid person.

   That's fool's gold, you dumbbell. Iron pyrite. Nobody would give you a dime for a ton of it.

   2015, Floyd Merrell, Enigmas: Gold Fever, Space-Time Warps, Sierra Madre Magic