Word.ws English Dictionary

wooden ear

wooden ear noun: tone-deafness of any kind.

Noun

wooden ear (plural wooden ears)

  1. (idiomatic) Tone-deafness of any kind.
    • have a wooden ear
    1. (idiomatic) Tone-deafness for musical tone.
      • A music teacher is challenged when a student seems to have a wooden ear.
    2. (idiomatic) Tone-deafness for usage tone.
      • She fancies herself a writer, but she'll steamroll idiom in a way that reveals a wooden ear.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see wooden, ear.
    • These dolls were traditionally made of fabric stuffed with straw, and they often had carved wooden ears and polished coals for eyes.

Forms of wooden ear

pluralwooden ears

Questions about wooden ear

What does wooden ear mean?
Wooden ear means tone-deafness of any kind.
What part of speech is wooden ear?
Wooden ear is a noun.
What is the plural of wooden ear?
The plural of wooden ear is wooden ears.

Words near wooden ear in the dictionary

  1. wooden
  2. wooden anniversaries
  3. wooden anniversary
  4. wooden coat
  5. wooden coats
  6. wooden ear
  7. wooden fish
  8. wooden fishes
  9. wooden horse
  10. wooden horses
  11. wooden kimono

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wooden ear (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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