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stone-deaf

[stohn-def]
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adjective
  1. totally deaf.
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Origin of stone-deaf

First recorded in 1830–40; stone + deaf
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for stone-deaf

deaf, hearing-impaired, stone-deaf

Examples from the Web for stone-deaf

Historical Examples of stone-deaf

  • Nature, to whose cries he has for so long turned a stone-deaf ear.

    Lord Randolph Churchill

    Winston Spencer Churchill

  • He spoke, if not to stone-deaf ears, to fast-deafening ears.

  • Poor Miss Wolfe had died some years before, and had been stone-deaf at that!

    Old Friends and New

    Sarah Orne Jewett

  • But the hunchback was not stone-deaf—at least when he cared to hear.

  • "I'd have him in Castle Rushen, the stone-deaf scoundrel," shouted Kinvig.

British Dictionary definitions for stone-deaf

stone-deaf

adjective
  1. completely deaf
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usage

Use of this word to refer to people with serious hearing difficulties is potentially very offensive: preferred form: profoundly deaf
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012