dull vs fustian

dull

adj
  • Not bright or intelligent; stupid; having slow understanding. 

  • Insensible; unfeeling. 

  • Not intense; felt indistinctly or only slightly. 

  • Sluggish, listless. 

  • Boring; not exciting or interesting. 

  • Not shiny; having a matte finish or no particular luster or brightness. 

  • Lacking the ability to cut easily; not sharp. 

  • Cloudy, overcast. 

  • Heavy; lifeless; inert. 

  • Not clear, muffled. 

verb
  • To render dull; to remove or blunt an edge or something that was sharp. 

  • To soften, moderate or blunt; to make dull, stupid, or sluggish; to stupefy. 

  • To lose a sharp edge; to become dull. 

  • To render dim or obscure; to sully; to tarnish. 

fustian

adj
  • Of a person, or their speech or writing: using inflated, pompous, or pretentious language; bombastic; grandiloquent; also (obsolete) using incoherent or unintelligible language. 

  • Made out of fustian (noun sense 1). 

noun
  • Inflated, pompous, or pretentious speech or writing; bombast; also (archaic), incoherent or unintelligible speech or writing; gibberish, nonsense. 

  • A class of fabric including corduroy and velveteen. 

  • Originally, a kind of coarse fabric made from cotton and flax; now, a kind of coarse twilled cotton, or cotton and linen, stuff with a short pile and often dyed a dull colour, which is chiefly prepared for menswear. 

How often have the words dull and fustian occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )