By the mid 19th century, the related words "bored", "boring" and "boredom" were being uttered with increasing frequency as the malaise spread downwards through society to people who, thanks to the seed drill and the reverberatory furnace, had more time on their hands than they knew what to do with.
She is too controlling, overworked, unfulfilled, bored, boring.
"Boring, boring, boring" chant the Stoke fans as Manchester United embark on a rare attack.
As it turns out, the reason the press corps are just "sitting there and letting him get away with it" is that they are bored, bored, bored to tears by Robert Gibbs and bored, bored, bored out their skulls by whatever it is Chip Reid is yammer, yammer, yammering about right now.
Polka-dot flowers and river deltas chalked across her steep forehead, as if bringing out her private depths and cliffs of thought, the bright hibiscus in there, the mudfields, long bathes; and she sways, bored, bored, bored, leaning this way and that against the air.
They are boring, boring boring.
The crowd of just 1,444 showed their disgust, crying "boring, boring, boring" repeatedly as Tavaré and England continued to bat on and on.
It's been "boing, boing" rather than "boring, boring" at The Hawthorns for more than a decade but drama-free seasons do have their merits.
It was breathless stuff and there were pointed chants of "boring, boring Chelsea" as Costa ran clear in stoppage time and sealed the points with his second goal.
Instead, it ended up as a rout, with Diego Costa at the heart of it and ironic cries of "boring, boring Chelsea" from the away end.
I explained that this was the moment when the 1970s finally outgrew the 1960s, when the monochrome world of boring, boring south-east England had exploded in a fiesta of colour.
