subs. (old: now colloquial).—A simpleton: see BUFFLE and CABBAGE-HEAD.—B. E. (c. 1696); A New Canting Dictionary (1725); GROSE (1785).
1712. ARBUTHNOT, John Bull Still in his Senses, III. i. ARBER’S English Garner, vi. 614. D— this NUMBED SKULL of mine, quoth he, that I could not light on it sooner.
1728. VANBRUGH, A Journey to London, i. 2. Thou art a NUMSKULL I see already.
1742. FIELDING, Joseph Andrews, III. xii. His wife … told him he would never leave following the nonsensical dictates of his own NUMSKULL, till she and her family were ruined.
1773. GOLDSMITH, She Stoops to Conquer, ii. 1. You NUMSKULLS! and so while like your betters, you are quarrelling for places, the guests must be starved.
1859. DICKENS, Tale of Two Cities, II. iv. I dined, myself, while those NUMSKULLS were deliberating which world you should belong to—this, or some other.
