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

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

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

But since the country has been ower-run by thae Hielanders an’ sodgers, they’ve had little peace, and the auld man has gie’n them a heap o’ trouble, for he’s as deaf as a post.

From Hunted and Harried by Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael)

A tall ungainly awkward man, with stooping shoulders and a shuffling walk, as deaf as a post, not overburdened with brains, but very good natured and easy, and liked by everyone.

From Life of John Keats His Life and Poetry, his Friends, Critics and After-fame by Colvin, Sidney

Uncle George is a twenty-four-handicap man, but only when he is at the very top of his game, and he is deaf as a post, left handed and a confirmed slicer.

From Fore! by Loan, Charles Emmett Van