Dumb vs. Fool — What's the Difference?

Lacking the power of speech. Used of animals and inanimate objects.

A person who acts unwisely or imprudently; a silly person

(Offensive) Incapable of using speech; mute. Used of humans. See Usage Note at mute.

A jester or clown, especially one retained in a royal or noble household.

Temporarily speechless, as with shock or fear

A cold dessert made of pureed fruit mixed or served with cream or custard

Unwilling to speak; taciturn.

Trick or deceive (someone); dupe

Not expressed or articulated in sounds or words

Act in a joking, frivolous, or teasing way

(Nautical) Not self-propelling.

Foolish; silly

Conspicuously unintelligent; stupid

One who is deficient in judgment, sense, or understanding.

Unintentional; haphazard

One who acts unwisely on a given occasion

To make silent or dumb.

One who has been tricked or made to appear ridiculous; a dupe

(dated) Unable to speak; lacking power of speech (kept in "deaf, dumb, and blind").

(Informal) A person with a talent or enthusiasm for a certain activity

(dated) Silent; unaccompanied by words.

A member of a royal or noble household who provided entertainment, as with jokes or antics; a jester.

Extremely stupid.

One who subverts convention or orthodoxy or varies from social conformity in order to reveal spiritual or moral truth

(figuratively) Pointless, foolish, lacking intellectual content or value.

A dessert made of stewed or puréed fruit mixed with cream or custard and served cold.

Lacking brightness or clearness, as a colour.

(Archaic) A mentally deficient person; an idiot.

To silence.

To deceive or trick; dupe

(transitive) To make stupid.

To confound or prove wrong; surprise, especially pleasantly

(transitive) To represent as stupid.

To speak or act facetiously or in jest; joke

(transitive) To reduce the intellectual demands of.

To behave comically; clown.

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

To feign; pretend

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

To engage in idle or frivolous activity.

Lacking brightness or clearness, as a color.

To toy, tinker, or mess

To put to silence.

Foolish; stupid

Slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity;

(pejorative) A person with poor judgment or little intelligence.

Unable to speak temporarily;

(historical) A jester; a person whose role was to entertain a sovereign and the court (or lower personages).

Lacking the power of human speech;

(informal) Someone who derives pleasure from something specified.

Unable to speak because of hereditary deafness

Buddy, dude, man.

(cooking) A type of dessert made of puréed fruit and custard or cream.

A particular card in a tarot deck, representing a jester.

To trick; to deceive.

To act in an idiotic manner; to act foolishly.

(archaic) To make a fool of; to make act the fool.

(informal) Foolish.

A compound of gooseberries scalded and crushed, with cream; - commonly called gooseberry fool.

One destitute of reason, or of the common powers of understanding; an idiot; a natural.

A person deficient in intellect; one who acts absurdly, or pursues a course contrary to the dictates of wisdom; one without judgment; a simpleton; a dolt.

One who acts contrary to moral and religious wisdom; a wicked person.

One who counterfeits folly; a professional jester or buffoon; a retainer formerly kept to make sport, dressed fantastically in motley, with ridiculous accouterments.

To play the fool; to trifle; to toy; to spend time in idle sport or mirth.

To infatuate; to make foolish.

To use as a fool; to deceive in a shameful or mortifying manner; to impose upon; to cheat by inspiring foolish confidence; as, to fool one out of his money.

A person who lacks good judgment

A person who is gullible and easy to take advantage of

A professional clown employed to entertain a king or nobleman in the middle ages

Make a fool or dupe of

Spend frivolously and unwisely;

Fool or hoax;

Indulge in horseplay;