deaf as a post

Idioms  

1. Also, deaf as an adder. Unable to hear or to listen, as in Speak louder, Grandpa's deaf as a post. The first simile has its origin in John Palsgrave's Acolastus (1540): “How deaf an ear I intended to give him ... he were as good to tell his tale to a post.” It has largely replaced deaf as an adder, alluding to an ancient belief that adders cannot hear; it is recorded in the Bible (Psalms 58:3–5).

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

deaf as a post

Father has a friend, a man in his mid-seventies named Mr. Dreher, who’s sick, poor and deaf as a post.

From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank

He's deaf as a post," and continued,— "If we marry, we 'll marry a beauty, If single we 'll try and control Our tastes within limits of duty, And make ourselves jolly with coal, Coal!

From The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly by Lever, Charles James

And was not Beethoven, in what some folk consider his mightiest era, as deaf as a post?

From Hortus Vitae Essays on the Gardening of Life by Lee, Vernon

She was young, enthusiastic, intensely interesting, and had only an old Roman nurse, deaf as a post and purblind, with her.

From Cecil Castlemaine's Gage, Lady Marabout's Troubles, and Other Stories by Ouida

Resuming their belief that she was as deaf as a post, or an iceberg, Rooney and Angut proceeded to discuss Ujarak and his probable plans without any regard to her.

From Red Rooney The Last of the Crew by Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael)