stone-deaf
adjective
totally deaf.
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stone deaf
stone deafTotally unable to hear, as in Poor Grandpa, in the last year he's become stone deaf. [First half of 1800s]
stone-deaf
American
[stohn-def]
/ ˈstoʊnˈdɛf /
adjective
stone-deaf
British
adjective
stone deaf
Idioms
Usage
Use of this word to refer to people with serious hearing difficulties is potentially very offensive: preferred form: profoundly deaf
Etymology
Origin of stone-deaf
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Her dam, Home by Dark, had never raced and was stone-deaf to boot.
From Time Magazine Archive
Although Mrs. Moore recovered, her fever left her stone-deaf.
From Time Magazine Archive
Reason: since his widowed mother had to work, he had been raised mostly by a stone-deaf grandmother who rarely spoke to him and was afraid to let him outside to play.
From Time Magazine Archive
Engineer Tran Chan Cha, 46, has steamed the Danang-Hue run since the days of the Indo-China war, has been blown up so often that today he is nearly stone-deaf.
From Time Magazine Archive
Stone-blind, and stone-deaf, there he stood—yet had he, without help, walked up the steps of the scaffold.
From Recreations of Christopher North, Volume I (of 2) by John Lyde Wilson
It was to this latter, more radical aspect that the mass media were stone deaf.
From Salon ● May 4, 2020
Earlier this month, Daltrey told the Daily Mail that "Pete is almost stone deaf".
From The Guardian ● Jul. 27, 2011
Visiting with his ancient Aunt Janie, a "grim old Presbyterian" almost stone deaf, Wilson twice bellowed into her ear trumpet: "I've just been elected President."
From Time Magazine Archive
Carolyn Wells, able author, declares that she, while practically stone deaf, can hear treble notes, feel the rhythm of music.
From Time Magazine Archive
You would have to be stone deaf to sleep through it even in a feather bed.
From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
