boring

Boring is a word with two common senses in English. As an adjective, boring describes something tedious or uninteresting, capable of causing boredom. It is often subjective and culturally dependent: what one person finds fascinating, another may find boring. Boring can refer to activities, media, speeches, or environments that lack novelty, suspense, or meaningful challenge. In everyday use, it functions as a value judgment and is frequently intensified or contrasted with opposites (very boring, not boring).

As a verb form, boring is the present participle of bore, meaning to drill a hole or enlarge one. In manufacturing and craftsmanship, boring is a precision machining operation that creates or sizes holes with tight tolerances. Tools include boring bars and boring heads used on lathes or boring mills; the resulting hole may be finished by reaming or honing to improve roundness and surface finish. Boring also appears in mining or construction contexts to describe hole-making work.

Etymology: both senses derive from the verb bore, with the dull meaning arising from the notion of something that "bores" a person by being tiresome. The two uses are distinct in everyday language but share a common root related to making holes or penetrating attention.

In engineering contexts, terms such as bored hole, bore diameter, and finish bore are used to describe hole quality and dimensions. The word has no fixed scientific definition beyond its practical uses, and its meaning depends on context and speaker.