Word.ws English Dictionary

have Van Gogh's ear for music

have Van Gogh's ear for music verb: to be tone-deaf.

Verb

have Van Gogh's ear for music (third-person singular simple present has Van Gogh's ear for music, present participle having Van Gogh's ear for music, simple past and past participle had Van Gogh's ear for music)

  1. (humorous, idiomatic, informal) To be tone-deaf.
    • After listening to Cliff Osmond, a huge, 225-pound actor, rehearse a song he was to sing as part of his role in Kiss Me, Stupid, Billy observed, not unkindly, "You have Van Gogh's ear for music."1970, Tom Wood, The bright side of Billy Wilder, primarily
    • […] some inebriated idiot belting out a karaoke number thinking that he or she is perfectly in tune and the rest of the audience is somehow captivated by the performance — most of them have Van Gogh's ear for music.2006, Stephen Murray, Darin Jewell, Dirty Laundry, page 2

Forms of have Van Gogh's ear for music

third-person singular presenthas Van Gogh's ear for music
present participlehaving Van Gogh's ear for music
past participlehad Van Gogh's ear for music
pasthad Van Gogh's ear for music

Origin of have Van Gogh's ear for music

Since Van Gogh (a painter, not a musician) is famed for cutting off his own ear. The phrase is attributed to Billy Wilder.

Questions about have Van Gogh's ear for music

What does have Van Gogh's ear for music mean?
Have Van Gogh's ear for music means to be tone-deaf.
What part of speech is have Van Gogh's ear for music?
Have Van Gogh's ear for music is a verb.
What is the past tense of have Van Gogh's ear for music?
The past tense of have Van Gogh's ear for music is had Van Gogh's ear for music.

Words near have Van Gogh's ear for music in the dictionary

  1. have to say for oneself
  2. have truck and trade with
  3. have truck with
  4. have two strings to one's bow
  5. have up
  6. have Van Gogh's ear for music
  7. have way
  8. have wind in one's jaw
  9. have words
  10. have work done
  11. have you eaten

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: have Van Gogh's ear for music (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-have Van Gogh's ear for music.ogg.

Cite this entry: “have Van Gogh's ear for music.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/have_van_gogh%27s_ear_for_music. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.