Adj. Dull; tame; commonplace; monotonous.
1702. Vanbrugh, False Friend, ii. A very humdrum marriage this.
1705. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. I., pt. ii., p. 6. Tho’ it is
their humdrum fashion To hate all musical precation.
1730. Jas. Miller, Humours of Oxford, Act I., p. 7 (2nd Ed.). Your
fellows of colleges are a parcel of sad, muzzy, humdrum, lazy,
ignorant old caterpillars.
d. 1764. Lloyd, Poems (1774), ‘A Familiar Epistle.’ So frothy,
vapid, stale, humdrum.
1765. C. Smart, Fables, xv., line 5. Content in humdrum mood
t’adjust Her matters to disperse the dust.
1774. Foote, Cozeners, i., 1. Not one, madam, of the humdrum,
drawling, long winded tribe.
1775. Sheridan, Rivals, ii., 1. Yet am I by no means certain that
she would take me with the impediment of our friends’ consent, a
regular humdrum wedding, and the reversion of a good fortune on my
side.
d. 1823. Bloomfield, Poems, ‘Richard and Kate’ (1825), p. 89. Come,
Goody, stop your humdrum wheel.
1825. Harriet Wilson, Memoirs, iii., 237. You are, in fact, too
constant for Paris. One has enough of all that hum-drum stuff in
England.
1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. lxi. The most fervent Liberals,
when out of power, become humdrum Conservatives, or downright
tyrants or despots in office.
1863. Alex. Smith, Dreamthorpe, p. 23. Giddy people may think the
life I lead here staid and humdrum, but they are mistaken.
1893. Standard, 8 Aug., p. 4, col. 6. The thing, in his view, is to
rattle off something pretentious, and avoid the humdrum and
tiresome methods which statesmanship of the pre-Home-Rule period
used to respect.
Humdurgeon, subs. (old).—1. An imaginary illness.—Grose.