Dense \Dense\, a. [L. densus; akin to Gr. ? thick with hair or leaves: cf. F. dense.]

1. Having the constituent parts massed or crowded together; close; compact; thick; containing much matter in a small space; heavy; opaque; as, a dense crowd; a dense forest; a dense fog. [1913 Webster]

All sorts of bodies, firm and fluid, dense and rare. --Ray. [1913 Webster]

To replace the cloudy barrier dense. --Cowper. [1913 Webster]

2. Stupid; gross; crass; as, dense ignorance. [1913 Webster]

Source: The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
 

161 Moby Thesaurus words for "dense": Boeotian, adamantine, asinine, beef-brained, beef-witted, blockheaded, blockish, bony, bovine, bristling, broad-bodied, bulky, bullnecked, cement, cemental, chumpish, cloddish, close, close-knit, close-textured, close-woven, coarse, compact, compacted, compressed, concentrated, concrete, condensed, congested, consolidated, corneous, corpulent, cowish, crammed, crammed full, crass, crawling, crowded, diamondlike, dim, dim-witted, doltish, dull, dullard, dumb, duncical, duncish, durable, dure, enduring, exuberant, fat, fatheaded, firm, flintlike, flinty, flourishing, foolish, full, full-bodied, gluey, granitelike, granitic, gross, hard, hard as nails, hardhearted, heaped, heavy, heavyset, horny, impassable, impassive, impenetrable, impermeable, ineducable, iron-hard, ironlike, jam-packed, jammed, jungled, jungly, klutzy, lapideous, lasting, lethargic, lithoid, lithoidal, lumpish, lush, luxuriant, marble, marblelike, massed, massive, nonporous, numskulled, oafish, obdurate, obtuse, opaque, osseous, overgrown, overrun, packed, phlegmatic, piled, populous, rank, resistant, resistive, riotous, rocklike, rocky, rugged, serried, slow, slow-witted, sluggish, solid, sottish, sound, stable, steady, steellike, steely, stolid, stonelike, stony, stout, strong, stupid, sturdy, substantial, swarming, teeming, thick, thick-bodied, thick-growing, thick-witted, thickheaded, thickset, three-dimensional, tight, torpid, tough, unteachable, unweeded, unyielding, viscid, viscose, viscous, weed-choked, weed-ridden, weedy, well-built, well-constructed, well-founded, well-grounded, well-made, wrongheaded

Source: Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
 

dense adj
1: permitting little if any light to pass through because of denseness of matter; "dense smoke"; "heavy fog"; "impenetrable gloom" [syn: heavy, impenetrable]
2: closely crowded together; "a compact shopping center"; "a dense population"; "thick crowds" [syn: compact, thick]
3: hard to pass through because of dense growth; "dense vegetation"; "thick woods" [syn: thick]
4: having high relative density or specific gravity; "dense as lead"
5: slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity; "so dense he never understands anything I say to him"; "never met anyone quite so dim"; "although dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick"- Thackeray; "dumb officials make some really dumb decisions"; "he was either normally stupid or being deliberately obtuse"; "worked with the slow students" [syn: dim, dull, dumb, obtuse, slow]

Source: WordNet (r) 2.0
 

Dense \Dense\, a. [L. densus; akin to Gr. ? thick with hair or leaves: cf. F. dense.]

1. Having the constituent parts massed or crowded together; close; compact; thick; containing much matter in a small space; heavy; opaque; as, a dense crowd; a dense forest; a dense fog.

All sorts of bodies, firm and fluid, dense and rare. --Ray.

To replace the cloudy barrier dense. --Cowper.

2. Stupid; gross; crass; as, dense ignorance.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)