deaf-and-dumb
Americanadjective
adjective
noun
Sensitive Note
See dumb.
Usage
Using deaf-and-dumb to refer to people without speech is considered outdated and offensive, and should be avoided. The phrase profoundly deaf is a suitable alternative in many contexts
Etymology
Origin of deaf-and-dumb
1150–1200; Middle English def and doumb
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.
In order to get Experience, she signed up with a No. 4 Company, playing the Part of the deaf-and-dumb lady who crosses the Stage and removes the Tea Things early in the Second Act.
From Knocking the Neighbors by Ade, George
In civil life this officer, a colonel of volunteers, had been an aurist of some note and the physician in attendance in a deaf-and-dumb asylum.
From The Storm Centre by Murfree, Mary Noailles
"I requested you to wait till I'd done reciting French, and I told you I'd then communicate it by the deaf-and-dumb alphabet."
From Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons A Personal Experience, 1864-5 by Sprague, Homer B. (Homer Baxter)
The physician could afford the lad but little relief, so the boy applied himself to the task of learning the deaf-and-dumb alphabet.
From Toaster's Handbook Jokes, Stories, and Quotations by Fanning, C. E. (Clara Elizabeth)
Goose-Skin runs after the trouvere, and imitating the gestures of the deaf-and-dumb, indicates that he pledges himself to silence.
From The Iron Pincers or Mylio and Karvel A Tale of the Albigensian Crusades by Sue, Eugène
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.
