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tone deafness

tone deafness Tone deafness is a form of mental or psychic deafness in which a person can still hear sounds but cannot properly understand or appreciate their musical meaning.

Tone deafness is a form of mental or psychic deafness in which a person can still hear sounds but cannot properly understand or appreciate their musical meaning. In this historical usage, it is grouped with musical deafness or amusia as a problem of interpreting sounds rather than a loss of hearing itself.

Also see

Sources

Drafting source: Baldwin Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, 1901. 1901 New York Macmillan original; archive index checked 2026-10-18. “Deafness (mental or psychic)” (Deafness (mental or psychic)).
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PsychTerms (psychterms.org), CC BY 4.0, version 1. “tone deafness.” Development preview.

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