dim

1. 1.

   lacking in light; not bright or harsh

   “a dim light beside the bed”

   “subdued lights and soft music”

   Synonymssubdued

   Similardark
2. 2.

   lacking clarity or distinctness

   “a dim figure in the distance”

   “only a faint recollection”

   “shadowy figures in the gloom”

   “saw a vague outline of a building through the fog”

   “a few wispy memories of childhood”

   Synonymsfaintshadowyvaguewispy

   Similarindistinct
3. 3.

   made dim or less bright

   “the dimmed houselights brought a hush of anticipation”

   “dimmed headlights”

   “we like dimmed lights when we have dinner”

   Synonymsdimmed

   Similarlow-beam
4. 4.

   offering little or no hope

   “the future looked black”

   “prospects were bleak”

   “Life in the Aran Islands has always been bleak and difficult”

   “took a dim view of things”

   Synonymsblackbleak

   Similarhopeless
5. 5.

   slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity

   “so dense he never understands anything I say to him”

   “never met anyone quite so dim”

   “although dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick”

   “dumb officials make some really dumb decisions”

   “he was either normally stupid or being deliberately obtuse”

   “worked with the slow students”

   Synonymsdensedulldumbobtuseslow

   Similarstupid

Other forms of dim

past tense or participle

dimmed

present participle

dimming

third person

dims·

comparative or superlative

dimmer

comparative or superlative

dimmest

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about dim

What does dim mean?

dim means "switch (a car's headlights) from a higher to a lower beam". That is the primary sense; the word has 10 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in dim?

dim has 1 syllable: dim. In IPA it is /ˈdɪm/.

What is another word for dim?

Close synonyms include dip, blind, blur, slur, subdued. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is dim a common word?

dim is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.