Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Unable to distinguish differences in musical pitch.
- adjective Unable to appreciate or understand the concerns or difficulties of others; out-of-touch.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Unable to clearly
distinguish the difference inpitch betweendifferent notes . - adjective colloquial Having little
appreciation ofmusic , whether or not as a result of (1).
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective unable to appreciate music
Etymologies
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Examples
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To talk about ‘net social costs’ in the context of marginalized minorities is tone-deaf.
The Volokh Conspiracy » So a Libertarian and a Liberal Walk into a Bar 2010
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If a team in the CFL decided to call itself the Patriots after a successful NFL team the name would sound clueless and tone-deaf, although not half as much as Real Salt Lake does.
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Really, how stupid and tone-deaf are these people?
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I think he is tone-deaf (country club, Civil Rights Act).
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NB: Ideally, this pervasive incoherence and tone-deaf arrogance will come naturally.
Sean Carman: The Hosni Mubarak Guide to Public Speaking Sean Carman 2011
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While it is great that so many businesses finally see the green in ‘going green’, too often businesses approach going green in all the wrong ways – producing useless ‘eco’ products, tone-deaf marketing, or even worse: greenwashing.
5 Mistakes Businesses Make While Trying to Go Green | Inhabitat 2010
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Whether it's pushing science on a dreamy poet or music on a tone-deaf athlete, society is littered with the rubble of childhoods mangled by parental ambition.
It's up to parents to keep achievement race from going down the toilet Petula Dvorak 2011
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There's a reason that we use the metaphor "tone-deaf" to describe a particular kind of political failure.
Discord and democracy: What we can learn about Cairo from Puccini's 'Tosca' Philip Kennicott 2011
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Even more frustrating is the inability to reach through the television screen and say directly to a people facing great peril and immense promise that while our political leaders are tone-deaf, we are not.
Discord and democracy: What we can learn about Cairo from Puccini's 'Tosca' Philip Kennicott 2011
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NB: Ideally, this pervasive incoherence and tone-deaf arrogance will come naturally.
Sean Carman: The Hosni Mubarak Guide to Public Speaking Sean Carman 2011
frindley commented on the word tone-deaf
Very few people are genuinely tone deaf. Very few.
But there are a lot of people who've been told – usually as a child by some thoughtless and ignorant adult – that they are tone deaf. These are the kids who are told to mouth the words in choir and are generally discouraged from singing or otherwise participating in music making, and who are then deprived of great enjoyment often for the rest of their lives. What makes me really furious is when the adult in question has been a "music teacher".
May 28, 2008
yarb commented on the word tone-deaf
I'm not technically tone deaf, but I can wreak serious carnage on a melody.
May 28, 2008
bilby commented on the word tone-deaf
I chant at football matches and don't just mouth the words :-)
e chi non salta
e' un laziale
oh oh oh - oh oh oh - oh oh oh oh oh!
May 29, 2008
TankHughes commented on the word tone-deaf
The official definitions above do not include the sense of "an inappropriate response to a situation which does not take into account how that response will look in that particular context or in the bigger picture."
Examples of tone-deaf responses by politicians to the Charleston shooting here: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-tone-deaf-responses-to-the-charleston-shooting-have-been-downright-baffling-2015-6
(trigger warning: references to gun violence)
September 14, 2015