I was momentarily startled by this sentence in Edgar Allen Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (intro to Chapter 11, with the protagonists adrift at sea in the doldrums), then realized that it is a perfectly proper use of "stupid":
"We spent the remainder of the day in a condition of stupid lethargy, gazing after the retreating vessel..."
Etymology from Wiktionary:
From Middle French stupide, from Latin stupidus (“struck senseless, amazed”), from stupeō (“be amazed or confounded, be struck senseless”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tup-, *(s)tewp- (“to wonder”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tew- (“to stand, stay”). Cognate with Old High German stubarōn (“to be astonished, be stunned, be blocked”).
Definitions of the adjective:
Lacking in intelligence or exhibiting the quality of having been done by someone lacking in intelligence.
To the point of stupor.
(archaic) Characterized by or in a state of stupor; paralysed.
(archaic) Lacking sensation; inanimate; destitute of consciousness; insensate.
Dulled in feeling or sensation; torpid
(slang) Amazing.
(slang) Darn, annoying.
Similar usages from a quick Google search:
"You, sir, who have at least some small opportunity of giving good advice, try and rouse us from this stupid lethargy, and, if you can, do something for literature, which has done so much for France." (Voltaire)
"Rouse, my Friends, rouse from your stupid lethargy. Mark the men who shall dare to impede the course of justice. Brand them as the infamous betrayers of the rights of their country." (Samuel Seabury, comment re the Continental Congress, 1774)
Stupefy, stupefied.
ReplyDeleteThus Sam. Johnson: "To STUPIFY. v. a. [stupefacio, Latin: this word should therefore be spelled stupefy; but the authorities are against it]".
ReplyDeleteFor stupid, adjective, he gives "1. Dull; wanting sensibility; wanting apprehension; heavy; sluggish of understanding. 2. Performed without skill or genius." "Sensibility" of course in Johnson's time meant awareness or perception.