Meaning

adjective slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity; ; ; - Thackeray

adjective temporarily incapable of speaking

adjective lacking the power of human speech

originFrom Middle English dumb (“silent, speechless, mute, ineffectual”), from Old English dumb (“silent, speechless, mute, unable to speak”), from Proto-West Germanic *dumb, from Proto-Germanic *dumbaz (“dull, dumb”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure”). The senses of stupid, unintellectual, and pointless, which are found regularly since the 19th century only,…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0