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What is "dumb animal"

The Collaborative International Dictionary
Dumb animal

Dumb \Dumb\, a. [AS. dumb; akin to D. dom stupid, dumb, Sw. dumb, Goth. dumbs; cf. Gr. ? blind. See Deaf, and cf. Dummy.]

  1. Destitute of the power of speech; unable; to utter articulate sounds; as, the dumb brutes.

    To unloose the very tongues even of dumb creatures.
    --Hooker.

  2. Not willing to speak; mute; silent; not speaking; not accompanied by words; as, dumb show.

    This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
    --Shak.

    To pierce into the dumb past. -- J. C. Shairp.

  3. Lacking brightness or clearness, as a color. [R.] Her stern was painted of a dumb white or dun color. --De Foe. Deaf and dumb. See Deaf-mute. Dumb ague, or Dumb chill, a form of intermittent fever which has no well-defined ``chill.'' [U.S.] Dumb animal, any animal except man; -- usually restricted to a domestic quadruped; -- so called in contradistinction to man, who is a ``speaking animal.'' Dumb cake, a cake made in silence by girls on St. Mark's eve, with certain mystic ceremonies, to discover their future husbands. --Halliwell. Dumb cane (Bot.), a west Indian plant of the Arum family ( Dieffenbachia seguina), which, when chewed, causes the tongue to swell, and destroys temporarily the power of speech. Dumb crambo. See under crambo. Dumb show.

    1. Formerly, a part of a dramatic representation, shown in pantomime. ``Inexplicable dumb shows and noise.''
      --Shak.

    2. Signs and gestures without words; as, to tell a story in dumb show.

      To strike dumb, to confound; to astonish; to render silent by astonishment; or, it may be, to deprive of the power of speech.

      Syn: Silent; speechless; noiseless. See Mute.

Usage examples of "dumb animal".

Yes, he was intelligent, but Hardy often saw him as a rather pathetic creaturea big dumb animal with an overdeveloped brain and backward in every other way.

There must be some kind of law to stop it, treating a poor dumb animal like that.

I'm sure she tamed her first husband, too, and thought of him lovingly and patronizingly as some kind of dumb animal.

I nodded, a dumb animal, not really a mother, and she took me into the hallway.

Whatever it was, it was still only a dumb animal, one kind of dumb animal or another, and it wouldn't have either the wit or the desire to lead her on a merry chase merely for the fun of it.

IQ that torturing me would be no more fun than torturing a dumb animal.