as in dumb
not having or showing an ability to absorb ideas readily
you're not unintelligent, so you must just be stubbornly resisting all attempts to teach you something
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Recent Examples of unintelligent
The show and its participants were even parodied on Saturday Night Live in January, with comedian Ego Nwodim playing Amuli, and other cast members mocking people’s poor conversation skills and unintelligent dating decisions.
—
Ct Jones, Rolling Stone, 10 Apr. 2025
Google had to re-edit a Super Bowl ad for its artificial intelligence (AI) tool Gemini because the original ad had Gemini seeming artificially unintelligent.
—Greg Cote, Miami Herald, 7 Feb. 2025
Growing shares in each party describe those in the other party as more closed-minded, dishonest, immoral and unintelligent than other Americans.
—NBC News, 22 Dec. 2024
Participants hesitated almost three times as long to switch off an intelligent and agreeable robot (34.5 seconds) compared to an unintelligent and non agreeable robot (11.8 seconds).
—IEEE Spectrum, 31 Jan. 2013
See All Example Sentences for unintelligent
Ct Jones, Rolling Stone, 10 Apr. 2025
Google had to re-edit a Super Bowl ad for its artificial intelligence (AI) tool Gemini because the original ad had Gemini seeming artificially unintelligent.
—Greg Cote, Miami Herald, 7 Feb. 2025
Growing shares in each party describe those in the other party as more closed-minded, dishonest, immoral and unintelligent than other Americans.
—NBC News, 22 Dec. 2024
Participants hesitated almost three times as long to switch off an intelligent and agreeable robot (34.5 seconds) compared to an unintelligent and non agreeable robot (11.8 seconds).
—IEEE Spectrum, 31 Jan. 2013
See All Example Sentences for unintelligent
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unintelligent
Adjective
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As Legally Blonde's Elle Woods, Witherspoon charted a memorable path from dumb blonde to Harvard Law School graduate.—
Ryan Coleman,
Entertainment Weekly,
6 Nov. 2025
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Celebrities fight it out to be eliminated from the competition as quickly as possible to avoid being crowned the nation’s dumbest.—
Peter White,
Deadline,
4 Nov. 2025
Adjective
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What gave me the crazy idea to stand at the bar, listening to that woman being praised for her stupid f---ing commitment to New York City and her ugly f---ing buildings?—
Charlotte Phillipp,
PEOPLE,
7 Nov. 2025
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Her mechanism for luring victims involves a stick, someone’s hair, her blood, and another person stupid enough to let her through their front door.—
Ryan Lattanzio,
IndieWire,
6 Nov. 2025
Adjective
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Hoover finished 319 yards on 34-of-50 passing, but his two turnovers were critical mistakes that led to TCU’s slow start in the first half.—
Steven Johnson,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
9 Nov. 2025
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When visiting the exhibit, plan on taking your time to make the most of it, or what the American Federation of Arts calls slow looking.—
Susan B. Barnes,
Southern Living,
9 Nov. 2025
Adjective
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According to Bruce Blair, a former Air Force launch officer and nuclear policy expert, between 1962 and the mid-1970s the most powerful digits on the globe were simple – eight zeros.—
Charlotte Reck,
CNN Money,
9 Nov. 2025
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That something as simple as a COVID vaccine might improve survival in cancer patients receiving standard immunotherapy has taken oncologists by surprise — in a good way.—
Lisa Jarvis,
Twin Cities,
8 Nov. 2025
Adjective
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In fact, the term itself was an epithet throughout the founding era, a way to describe ignorant and easily deceived popular majorities, perpetually vulnerable to demagogues.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
28 Oct. 2025
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International students are close to entirely ignorant of Canadian history and politics.—
Dónal Gill,
The Dial,
28 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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The thick artificial foliage is pre-lit with warm white LED bulbs spaced through the entire length of the 10-foot piece.—
Kate McGregor,
Architectural Digest,
5 Nov. 2025
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With more than 38,000 gallons of fuel on board the cargo flight bound for Hawaii, the crash created a massive ball of fire – punctuated by smaller explosions from flammable material on the ground – and sent a towering plume of thick black smoke into the sky.—
Karina Tsui,
CNN Money,
5 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Unintelligent.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unintelligent. Accessed 10 Nov. 2025.
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