Bored vs Boring

We’re bored, all the time.

We’re bored by stuffy textbooks and traditional ways of learning. We’re bored by things that aren’t interesting or inspiring. We’re bored by the same old things, things that never seem to change.

But we’re not boring - oh, no.

Never boring.

Put it this way – we’d rather admit we’re bored, than boring. If someone said we looked bored, that would be fine – we probably would be, if you caught us watching the grass grow, or looking out the window at nothing in particular – eyes glazed over, mouth probably hanging open and letting flies in. We’d probably laugh it off and recompose ourselves.

But if someone said we looked boring, that would be horrible – we would probably cry, too. 😭

“What’s the difference?”

We here your question, and it’s a good one.

Both “boring” and “bored” come from the word “bore” – a noun meaning someone or something dull and uninteresting, or a verb that causes this to happen. For instance, you’d probably describe a person as A BORE (noun) because they BORE (verb) you. But how would you use “boring” and “bored”, then?

A bore would be boring…

Rajah thinks work is boring.

and you’d be bored by a bore.

Rajah is bored.

Essentially, “bored” and “boring” are both adjectives – the main difference is, they’re describing completely different things.

You use “boring” to describe something (or someone) dull or uninteresting, and you use “bored” to describe how you feel about this uninteresting something (or someone).

Remember the list of stuff we mentioned earlier – stuffy textbooks, old ways of learning, things that never change?

These things make us feel bored…

because these things are boring.

Are you with us so far, or are you bored yet? Is this article boring?

Here’s another way of looking at it – you can say a book is boring, but you can’t say a book is bored. The book could make you feel bored (hence making it boring), but it cannot be bored, because books cannot have feelings.

On the other hand, a person could be bored, because people have feelings, AND a person could make you feel bored, hence making them boring. (Though we really hope you don’t meet people like these often!)

Similarly, if someone said we were “bored”, that would be correct, because they’d be describing how we were feeling. But if someone said we were “boring”, we would probably cry, because they’d be describing how we made them feel.

We’d like to see you try using these words – when was the last time you felt bored? When was the last time you found something boring? Tell us about it in the comments!

(We’ve used these words so many times, we’re almost bored. Kidding – good English use is never boring.)