dunderheaded

comparative more dunderheaded · superlative most dunderheaded · alternative dunder-headed

1. Stupid, foolish.

   He knew all about it, dammit! It was no pleasure for him to have the thing shoved down his neck by every dunderheaded pumpkin-faced noodle in the universe!

   1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 141

   3 more examples

   Much nearer sixty years of age than fifty, with a flowing outline of stomach, and horizontal creases in his waistcoat; reputed to be rich; voting at elections in the strictly respectable interest; morally satisfied that nothing but he himself has grown since he was a baby; how can dunder-headed Mr. Sapsea be otherwise than a credit to Cloisterham, and society?

   1870 April–September, Charles Dickens, chapter 4, in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1870, →OCLC

   He went doggedly across the fields with his terrier, and looked at everything with a jaundiced eye. . . . [W]as he a dunderheaded baby, not man enough to be like the other young fellows who drank a good deal and wenched a little without any question, and were satisfied?

   1915, D. H. Lawrence, chapter 1, in The Rainbow

   The best way to see Hell's Highway, which opens today in Manhattan, might be on a double bill with 2 Fast 2 Furious. Yes, one is a scholarly documentary and the other a dunderheaded action picture, but both, in their different ways, offer testimony to the love affair between the movie camera and the automobile

   2003 June 27, A. O. Scott, “Film Review: Driver's Ed That Was Covered in Blood”, in New York Times, retrieved 29 Nov 2017

   Synonyms: addlebrained, addlepated, airheaded, bee-brained, beef-witted, soft, beefheaded, beetle-headed