deaf
/dɛf
/adjective
1Lacking the power of hearing or having impaired hearing: I’m a bit deaf so you’ll have to speak up deaf children...
- Thorn Park School is a day special school for deaf and partially hearing children from two to sixteen years of age.
- Budgie is a hearing dog for the deaf and was brought in for assembly by his owner Tracy Lewis, who lives in the town.
- If you're talking to a deaf person and a hearing person, don't just focus on the hearing person.
1.1Unwilling or unable to hear or pay attention to something: she is deaf to all advice...
- As I said last weekend, it's easy to become deaf to the sirens in Hackney.
- It may be that I've been deaf to the roar of protest that has met this authoritarian and intrusive measure.
- You appear to excel at giving orders but are deaf to the needs of your employees.
Synonyms
unmoved by, untouched by, unaffected by, dispassionate about, indifferent to, heedless of, unresponsive to, unconcerned with, unmindful of, unaware of, unconscious of, oblivious to, insensible to, impervious to
Phrases
(as) deaf as a post
fall on deaf ears
turn a deaf ear
Origin
Old English dēaf, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch doof and German taub, from an Indo-European root shared by Greek tuphlos 'blind'.
The ancient ancestor of deaf also produced Greek tuphlos ‘blind’. It probably referred to general dullness in perception, rather than dullness in any particular sense. Emphatic comparisons include as deaf as an adder and as deaf as a post. The traditional deafness of an adder is based on an image in the Psalms, ‘the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear’. Actually, all snakes are deaf, not just the adder—they ‘hear’ by means of sensors that pick up vibrations in the ground such as footsteps.