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
In stone-deaf Lady Strickland's Maltese garden a land mine blew the tail feathers off her prize peacock, blew Lady Strickland off her feet.
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
Nearing 83, he is stone-deaf, inclined to doze off in the middle of important conversations.
From Time Magazine Archive
"The fellow is stone-deaf," said he; "let them negotiate with him!"
From The Tower of Dago by Mór Jókai
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
The shepherd won the crowd, but Judge Hartman, ignoring the applause as though he were stone deaf, went on with his work.
From Time Magazine Archive
If I am passed over it is expected that a similar fate will overtake my father's second son, Prince Jaime, for he is almost stone deaf.
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.
