dumbbell

[ duhm-bel ]

noun

1. a gymnastic apparatus consisting of two wooden or metal balls connected by a short bar serving as a handle, used as a weight for exercising.
2. a stupid person.

   Synonyms: dimwit, blockhead, fool, ignoramus, dunce

dumbbell

/ ˈdʌmˌbɛl /

noun

1. gymnastics weightlifting an exercising weight consisting of a single bar with a heavy ball or disc at either end
2. a small wooden object shaped like this used in dog training for the dog to retrieve
3. slang.
   a fool

Word History and Origins

Origin of dumbbell¹

First recorded in 1705–15; dumb + bell ¹

Example Sentences

One afternoon in late August — on the heels of his win at a $25,000 ITF tournament in Londrina, Brazil — he is laboring away under the marine layer, cycling through dumbbell exercises, agility drills and torturous rounds of medicine ball manipulation.

From Los Angeles Times

“I bought the first one of these on EBay,” Rogen said of a standing Maurice Chalvignac ashtray that looks like the lovechild of a dumbbell and a Q-tip.

From Los Angeles Times

“I bought the first one of these on EBay,” Rogen said of a standing Maurice Chalvignac ashtray that looks like the lovechild of a dumbbell and a Q-tip.

From Los Angeles Times

A magnet fisher found a human skull padlocked to an exercise dumbbell in New Orleans last month, and someone fishing in a creek in Georgia in April pulled up a rifle and some belongings of a couple who were killed nine years ago.

From Seattle Times

"Instead of the typical round specks, the deformed wavefront produces a dumbbell shape on the camera that rotates around itself. The direction in which this dumbbell points is dependent on the distance that the light had to travel from the atom to the camera."

From Science Daily