Englishturn a deaf ear
Meaning: To ignore someone.
Example: “The company turned a deaf ear to the workers' complaints.”
Other ways to say this
- English: To turn a blind eye
Italian: Fare orecchie da mercante Literally: To make merchant's ears
Dutch: in de wind slaan Literally: To strike in the wind
Origin: In use by the first half of the 1400s — Walter Hilton's Scala Perfectionis has "make deef ere to hem as though thou herde hem not" around 1440 — and common enough two centuries later to appear in every major English proverb collection from John Heywood's in 1546 through James Kelly's in 1721. The fuller, now largely obsolete form paired it with its visual twin: John Norris's 1698 A Discourse of Walking by Faith has "turn the deaf ear and the blind eye," treating deliberate inattention as something that could be done with either sense, hearing or sight, equally well.
More English idioms
- when hell freezes over Never.
- beat the bushes To search exhaustively.
- between the devil and the deep blue sea Facing two difficult outcomes for the same situation.
- down to earth Practical and rational; unpretentious.
- fair-weather friend A person who is loyal in good times but not when times are difficult.
- field day A wild and uncontrolled time; a time of especially pleasant or exciting action.
Explore another collection: Proverbs
Short sayings of timeless wisdom from more than 50 cultures, each with its meaning and origin.
- Never quit certainty for hope. Abandoning what you reliably have for uncertain future prospects invites unnecessary loss.
- Look to the main chance. Prioritize opportunities that offer genuine benefit over distractions or minor advantages.
- Child's pig, but father's bacon. A child enjoys raising the pig, but the parent bears the real costs and consequences of i…
Keep exploring