subs. (old: now recognised).—1. A tiresome dullard; a steady-going, commonplace person. See also quot. 1725.
1598. JONSON, Every Man in his Humour, i. 1. By gadslid I scorn it, I, so I do, to be a consort for every HUMDRUM.
1725. A New Canting Dictionary, s.v. HUM-DRUMS or HUMS, a Society of Gentlemen, who meet near the Charter-House, or at the King’s Head in St. John’s Street. Less of mystery, and more of Pleasantry than the Free Masons.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
2. Monotony; tameness; dullness.
1823. JOHN CAMPBELL, Hints for Oxford, p. 63. Men of spirit must ever dislike the unleavened HUMDRUM of its monkish constitution.
1893. The Nation, 13 July, p. 32, col. 1. We go so far with the adorers of home and HUMDRUM.
3. (old).—The same as HUMBUG (q.v.).
1596. NASHE, Have with You to Saffron-Walden (GROSART, Works, iii., 14). Whereof generous Dick (without HUMDRUM be it spoken) I utterly despair of them.
4. (old).—A wife; also a husband.
Adj. Dull; tame; commonplace; monotonous.
1702. VANBRUGH, The 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. JAMES MILLER, The 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. R. 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, The Cozeners, i., 1. Not one, madam, of the HUMDRUM, drawling, long winded tribe.
1775. SHERIDAN, The 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.
1802. BLOOMFIELD, Rural Tales, ‘Richard and Kate’ (1825), p. 89. Come, Goody, stop your HUMDRUM wheel.
1825. HARRIETTE 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, Dreamthorp, 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.
