1
: lacking wit or understanding : foolish
2
: mentally unsound
… drive one witless with anxiety.—
William Styron
William Styron
witlessly
adverb
witlessness
noun
Synonyms
- airheaded
- birdbrained
- bonehead
- boneheaded
- brain-dead
- brainless
- bubbleheaded
- chuckleheaded
- dense
- dim
- dim-witted
- doltish
- dopey
- dopy
- dorky [slang]
- dull
- dumb
- dunderheaded
- empty-headed
- fatuous
- gormless [chiefly British]
- half-witted
- knuckleheaded
- lamebrain
- lamebrained
- lunkheaded
- mindless
- oafish
- obtuse
- opaque
- pinheaded
- senseless
- simple
- slow
- slow-witted
- soft
- softheaded
- stupid
- thick
- thick-witted
- thickheaded
- unintelligent
- unsmart
- vacuous
- weak-minded
Examples of witless in a Sentence
He committed a witless blunder.
a dog so witless that it is barely trainable
Recent Examples on the Web
But apparently, California just couldn’t abide this challenge to its primacy as the most witless state in the union.
—Noah Rothman, National Review, 23 Sep. 2024
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) To borrow Jeff Bridges’s description of the magazine that Simon Pegg’s character once ran, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is witless.
—Matthew Jacobs, Vulture, 12 Apr. 2024
Police believed the perpetrators were the yakuza, who were irked by Itami’s portrayal of them as witless bullies outsmarted by a cunning attorney (played by Itami’s actress wife Nobuko Miyamoto, who starred in all of his films) in Minbo.
—Jessica Wang, EW.com, 22 Dec. 2023
Ayer does a more-than-decent job directing the action scenes, which is what matters most with such a witless genre entry.
—Peter Debruge, Variety, 10 Jan. 2024
See all Example Sentences for witless 
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Noah Rothman, National Review, 23 Sep. 2024
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) To borrow Jeff Bridges’s description of the magazine that Simon Pegg’s character once ran, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is witless.
—Matthew Jacobs, Vulture, 12 Apr. 2024
Police believed the perpetrators were the yakuza, who were irked by Itami’s portrayal of them as witless bullies outsmarted by a cunning attorney (played by Itami’s actress wife Nobuko Miyamoto, who starred in all of his films) in Minbo.
—Jessica Wang, EW.com, 22 Dec. 2023
Ayer does a more-than-decent job directing the action scenes, which is what matters most with such a witless genre entry.
—Peter Debruge, Variety, 10 Jan. 2024
See all Example Sentences for witless
Dictionary Entries Near witless
Cite this Entry
“Witless.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/witless. Accessed 1 Dec. 2024.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share