not the sharpest knife in the drawer

plural not the sharpest knives in the drawer

1. euphemistichumorousLacking in intelligence; dimwitted.

   2003,Lucille Bluth, Arrested Development, S:1 E:3 “And I know he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he's sensitive, Michael,” “He fits in a lot of ways, but he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is he?” “Maybe he just plays it stupid so people expect less of him.”

   3 more examples

   You can block or tackle, or you can do some exotic things with a football cradled under your arm, but you're not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to book learning.

   1994 September 5, Richard Hoffer, “Get Smart!”, in Sports Illustrated

   [A] man who has lost every dollar he ever won–somewhere north of $US300 million ($370 million)–and done three years for rape is possibly not the sharpest knife in the drawer, nor the most likeable.

   2009 August 11, Paul Byrnes, “Tyson”, in Brisbane Times, Australia

   Intelligence = 1 / Title. The higher the level in the organization, the inversely less intelligent they are. Folk at the top have human skills and business savvy, but despite all the press, most are not the sharpest knives in the drawer—after all, that’s your job!

   2022, Lawrence S. Maisel, Robert J. Zwerling, Jesper H. Sorensen, AI-Enabled Analytics for Business: A Roadmap for Becoming an Analytics Powerhouse, Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., →ISBN, page 192

   Synonyms: not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, not the sharpest crayon in the box, not the sharpest tool in the box/shed, dumb as a bag of hammers/…box of rocks