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deaf as a post
Idioms and Phrases
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).Example Sentences
“I figured you didn’t have a dog—or he was deaf as a post. What does a minister have to steal?”
“I’m deaf as a post,” Risher recently said, “but I can see 20/20 with these glasses, and I still look at the girls. They don’t look at me, though. That’s the problem.”
One reptile guide from the 1950s went so far as to call them, quote, “deaf as a post.”
“But I still remained as deaf as a post.”
“He’s as deaf as a post,” Ted said.
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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.
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