adjective
Not alert or quick in perception or feeling; dull; not observant; not sharp or pointed, blunt in form.
It is because the public are a mass—inert, obtuse, and passive—that they need to be shaken up from time to time so that we can tell from their bear-like grunts where they are—and also where they stand. They are pretty harmless, in spite of their numbers, because they are fighting against intelligence.
—Alfred Jarry “Theater Questions” La Revue Blanche (1897) Reprinted in The Selected Works of Alfred Jarry (1965)
