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Dull; heavy; spiritless. "That he may not grow musty and unfit for conversation." Addison.

A soft white substance constituting the medullary sheats of nerve fibers, and composed mainly of cholesterin, lecithin, cerebrin, albumin, and some fat.

helium cells, and resembling, if not identical with, the substance (myelin) forming the medullary sheaths of nerve fibers.

A disease producing a peculiar cretinoid appearance of the face, slow speech, and dullness of intellect, and due to failure of the functions of the thyroid gland. -- Myx`o*dem"a*tous (#), a., Myx`o*dem"ic (#), a.

e fiber (Anat.), one of the fibers of which nerves are made up. These fibers are either medullated or nonmedullated. in both kinds the essential part is the translucent threadlike axis cylinder which is continuous the whole length of the fiber. -- Nerve stretching (Med.), the operation of stretching a nerve in order t…

enteron; as, the neurenteric canal, which, in embroys of many vertebrates, connects the medullary tube and the primitive intestine. See Illust. of Ectoderm.

, resembling keratin, present in nerve tissue, as in the sheath of the axis cylinder of medullated nerve fibers. Like keratin it resists the action of most chemical agents, and by decomposition with sulphuric acid yields leucin and tyrosin.

To be drowsy or dull; to be careless. Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. Pope.

An elastic cartilagelike rod which is developed beneath the medullary groove in the vertebrate embryo, and constitutes the primitive axial skeleton around which the centra of the vertebræ and the posterior part of the base of the skull are developed; the chorda dorsalis. See Illust. of Ectoderm.

; to deaden; to benumb; to stupefy. For lazy winter numbs the laboring hand. Dryden. Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. Tennyson.

live many centuries. The wood is usually hard and tough, and provided with conspicuous medullary rays, forming the silver grain.

The medulla oblongata. B. G. Wilder.

Of or pertaining to the medulla oblongata; medullar.

To reduce the edge, pungency, or violent action of; to dull; to blunt; to deaden; to quell; as, to obtund the acrimony of the gall. [Archaic] Harvey. They...have filled all our law books with the obtunding story of their suits and trials. Milton.

Not having acute sensibility or perceptions; dull; stupid; as, obtuse senses. Milton.

The state of being dulled or blunted; as, the obtusion of the senses. Harvey.

Like an olive. Olivary body (Anat.), an oval prominence on each side of the medulla oblongata; -- called also olive.

Inducing sleep; somniferous; narcotic; hence, anodyne; causing rest, dullness, or inaction; as, the opiate rod of Hermes. Milton.

A sense of heaviness or obstruction in the body or mind; depression; dullness; lassitude; as, an oppression of spirits; an oppression of the lungs. There gentlee Sleep First found me, and with soft oppression seized My drowsed sense. Milton.

Drowsiness; dullness; sluggishness. Hallam. It might proceed from the oscitancy of transcribers. Addison.