fall on deaf ears

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

fall on deaf ears (third-person singular simple present falls on deaf ears, present participle falling on deaf ears, simple past fell on deaf ears, past participle fallen on deaf ears)

1. (intransitive, figuratively) To be ignored.

   Synonym: go in one ear and out the other

   Every time I ask him to do something for me, it falls on deaf ears.

   • 1984 August 18, Eronel, “Women In Cages”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 6, page 6:

     Then there's the sad fact that for many, this place is all they know. It's home. Soooo, conversation relating to living beyond the walls falls on deaf ears sometimes.

   • 2020 June 17, Christian Wolmar, “The strategy of 'don't use the railways' must be reversed...”, in Rail, page 44:

     My earlier warnings, both in RAIL and in an article I wrote for The Times, have not fallen on deaf ears. There are many people (I suspect most) in the [rail] industry who recognise that telling people not to use their trains will cause lasting damage, but they are silenced publicly because they are now taking the Government's shilling.

Translations

of a request, complaint, etc, to be ignored

• Finnish: kaikua kuuroille korville (fi)
• French: tomber dans l’oreille d’un sourd (fr)
• German: auf taube Ohren stoßen (de)
• Hebrew: נָפַל עַל אֹזְנַיִם עֲרֵלוֹת (he) (nafál 'al oznáim arelót)
• Hungarian: süket fülekre talál
• Italian: essere ignorato, non trovare ascolto, cadere nel vuoto
• Norwegian: falle på døve ører
• Polish: trafiać w próżnię impf, trafić w próżnię pf
• Russian: в одно́ у́хо влета́ет, в друго́е вылета́ет (v odnó úxo vletájet, v drugóje vyletájet, literally “it flies into one ear, it flies out from the other”)
• Spanish: caer en saco roto (es)
• Telugu: చెవిటివాని ముందు శంఖమూదినట్లు (ceviṭivāni mundu śaṅkhamūdinaṭlu)

See also

• turn a deaf ear
• preach to deaf ears

Further reading

• “fall on deaf ears”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “fall on deaf ears” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
• “fall on deaf ears”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.