30+ Colorful Ways of Calling Someone Dumb In English

English idioms seem to be the most colorful when they concern the characteristics of a person. This is especially true when an idiom is used to describe someone as dumb, stupid, or slow-witted.

There is a large group of related idioms that use the same metaphor of something missing, or not having enough of something, and other related expressions, to say that someone is not very smart. They are all indirect ways of saying someone is stupid.

As a curator of idioms, I have never seen so many variables on a theme as these ‘stupid’ idioms. It seems the creativity never ends when we are insulting someone’s intelligence! The reason is simple. Throughout history, the stupidity of a person has been a subject that we avoid talking about directly. Therefore, we have created an endless variety of euphemisms and circumlocutions to avoid saying it directly. Yet, the idioms we use to say ‘stupid’ are completely transparent and obvious.

Someone who is unintelligent is sometimes said to be ‘not the sharpest knife in the drawer.’ When someone is particularly dull, we might say ‘the lights are on, but nobody’s home.’  A particularly insulting alternative is calling someone ‘dead from the neck up.’ Even worse sounding to my ears is ‘braindead.’ Here is a list of other similar idioms that are used to call someone stupid.

20+ Stupid Idioms In English

1. A few cards shy of a deck
2. Not playing with a full deck
3. A few fries short of a Happy Meal
4. A few bricks shy of a load
5. A few sandwiches short of a picnic
6. Elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top
7. Only has one oar in the water
8. Not the brightest bulb (in the chandelier)
9. Not the sharpest tool in the shed
10. Fell out of the stupid tree (and hit every branch on the way down)
11. Dumb as a sack of rocks
12. Cheese has slipped off his cracker
13. A few apples short of a bushel

While the previous list names some of the variations that have been around for a while, others seem to crop up all the time. Here are more idioms for stupid I found on my search.

14. A few miles short of a marathon
15. Not the brightest crayon in the box
16. One prawn short of a cocktail
17. A few tiles short of a roof
18. A few trucks short of a convoy
19. A couple of beers shy of a six-pack
20. As sharp as a marble
21. Took an IQ test and the test came back negative

While these are the most colorful and creative ways to call someone dumb, some time-honored classics that don’t do the “avoidance dance” are

• dumb as a door-nail,
• dumb as a rock
• dumb as toast
• dumb as a post

We also have a number of compound words to describe someone as unintelligent, most of which use the word head, but also brain, and skull.

• birdbrained
• airhead (or airheaded)
• nitwit
• lunkhead
• knucklehead
• numskull
• blockhead
• bonehead
• dunderhead
• chucklehead
• chowderhead
• meathead

As a bonus, here is one from my childhood:

“When they were handing out brains in heaven, he thought they said trains, so he missed his.”

Of course, I’d be a nincompoop if I claimed these were all the ways to say stupid in English.