English Help Online's Blog

Today I’d like to go over another adjective – “blunt”. There are two meanings for this word:

1. to not be sharp (this is usually used to talk about the part of a knife blade or a sword blade which is not sharp). For example:

In the movie, the king struck another man with the blunt edge of his sword in order to scare him.

I almost hurt my hand with a knife. Luckily, it was the blunt edge that touched my hand, so I wasn’t hurt.

2. for a person to speak very directly when saying something negative. For example:

My boss is very blunt, so sometimes he offends people at my office.

I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I thought your report was very badly written.

My sister is a very blunt person. She always says whatever she thinks.

The second meaning of the word “blunt” is much more commonly used than the first one. It is important to note that when people are blunt, they are usually not trying to be rude. It is just their personality to speak very directly. Therefore, the word “blunt” is neutral in tone. However, if we say a person is “too blunt” then it becomes negative.