dumbing
SayDUM-ing/ˈdʌmɪŋ/
- 1Present participle and gerund of dumb.
Critics accused the broadcaster of dumbing down its evening news.
Publishers risk dumbing down complex subjects when chasing casual readers.
Note
One -ing form doing two jobs: a participle in "the network is dumbing its coverage down," a verbal noun in "the dumbing of the evening news." Its modern meanings run from making someone stupid, or portraying them so, to stripping a subject of its intellectual demands, the sense most at home with down. The older meaning, to silence, is dated, so "dumbing a crowd" now reads as quaint rather than insulting.
dumbing is a form of dumb
dumb, verb: To reduce the intellectual demands of something; make it simpler than it was. Full entry
- Spelling
- dumb → dumbing: add -ing
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