tin ear

English

WOTD – 7 January 2012

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Noun

tin ear (plural tin ears)

1. Insensitivity to and inability to appreciate the elements of performed music or the rhythm, elegance, or nuances of language.
   • 1973, Thomas Cable, “A Garland of Pomposities: Comment on Halle-Keyser Prosody”, in College English, volume 34, number 4, page 593:

     Despite their careless scholarship and a less tangible quality that some would call a tin ear for poetry, Morris Halle and S. J. Keyser, as metrists, have the considerable virtue of explicitness.

2. (figurative) Insensitivity to the nuances of the current situation or the subtleties of a craft; indifference to somebody else's attitudes, moods, and dialogue.

   Synonym: tone-deafness

   • 2012 August 18, “Ripping yarns: A revived spat between Japan and South Korea unsettles the United States”, in The Economist:

     Japan has often displayed a tin ear to South Korean sensitivities over the island, which it calls Takeshima, having acquired it in the process of annexing Korea.

   • 2020 December 2, Philip Haigh, “A winter of discontent caused by threat of union action”, in Rail, page 63:

     With the economy as it is, I think the RMT has a tin ear to think it will find sympathy or public support for strike action. I hope sense prevails,

   • 2022 December 17, Ed O’Loughlin, quoting Lorcan Sirr, “Once a Figurehead of Change, Ireland’s Returning Leader Has Lots to Prove”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     “The tin ear and lack of sensitivity to other people’s needs is fairly characteristic of his party,” Mr. Sirr noted.

   • 2025 June 11, Ben Quinn, quoting Julia Hobsbawm, “Entrepreneur ‘humiliated’ after London Tech Week turns her and baby away”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Julia Hobsbawm […] responded to Schonle’s post on LinkedIn, saying: “Shocking to read this happened. The defensive quote from London Tech Week the worst kind of tin ear.”

Translations

inability to appreciate the elements of performed music

• Finnish: peltikorva
• German: to have a tin ear: kein musikalisches Gehör haben
• Hungarian: botfül (hu)
• Norwegian: uten musikkøre n
• Polish: słoń nadepnął komuś na ucho (pl)
• Russian: медве́дь на у́хо наступи́л (ru) (medvédʹ na úxo nastupíl) (bear stepped on ear)

See also

• cloth-eared
• tone-deaf

References

• “have a tin ear”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

• Reitan, atrine, ratiné, retain, retina, tanier, tearin'