Tin ear
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Insensitivity to and inability to appreciate the elements of performed music or the rhythm, elegance, or nuances of language.
"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 insensitivity to the appropriateness or subtlety of language wordnet
- 3 Insensitivity to the nuances of the current situation or the subtleties of a craft; indifference to somebody else's attitudes, moods, and dialogue. figuratively
"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."
- 4 an inability to distinguish differences in pitch wordnet
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More examples"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."