undumb

English

Etymology

un- +‎ dumb

Adjective

undumb (not comparable) (rare superlative undumbest)

1. Not dumb (in various senses).
   • 1926, P. C. Wren, Beau Sabreur: By Percival Christopher Wren, page 298:

     Then I did a miracle on myself and came undumb.

   • 1995, Joseph Grigely, Textualterity: Art, Theory, and Textual Criticism, University of Michigan Press, →ISBN, page 126:

     This is a perfect phrase, a phrase that unveils the irony of Cézanne's unlong and undumb paintings — each, we might assume, with its own unfixed idea of velocity.

   • 1996, Vita Sackville-West, edited by Peter Washington, Love Letters, Everyman's Library, →ISBN, page 66:

     You, with all your undumb letters, would never write so elementary a phrase; perhaps you wouldn't even feel it.

   • 2014 October 7, Faith Hunter, Broken Soul, Penguin, →ISBN:

     “If there are no undumb questions, meeting adjourned.”

Verb

undumb (third-person singular simple present undumbs, present participle undumbing, simple past and past participle undumbed)

1. to make no longer dumb.
   • 1989 January 1, Michael Lombardo, Robert Eichinger, Preventing Derailment: What To Do Before It's Too Late, Center for Creative Leadership, →ISBN, page 12:

     One of her earlier bosses said of her: “She gives people a chance to undumb themselves—she asks lots of questions, gives careful feedback, delegates complete tasks with careful instructions.

   • 2010 May 11, Ben Wattenberg, Values Matter Most: How Republicans, or Democrats, or a Third Party Can Win and Renew the American Way of Life, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 93:

     Almost everyone knows we have dumbed down our schools and have to undumb them.

   • 2020 April 7, Richard Grossinger, Bottoming Out the Universe: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:

     The wave is quantum entanglement, Multipersonhood, over determination, and even that doesn't begin to undumb what's going on.