deaf-and-dumb person
1
9.9
- noun
- Slur
:
[DESPECTIVO] sordomudo
- "He is referred to as a deaf-and-dumb person, but he has so much to share with the world."
Examples
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The perfect witness - deaf and dumb.
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Being deaf and dumb is not a skill.
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We believe he's deaf and dumb.
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Deaf and dumb from that scarlet fever, and I had been treating her so.
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There was a deaf and dumb guy who had retired as a printer at some newspaper, and he was the only guy in The Flats who didn't have a radio going all day long.
Fiction book (2000) -
"My God, he's deaf and dumb, and you're harassing him," said the woman in scandalized tones.
Fiction book (2000) -
The charity provides support for a deaf-and-dumb person who struggles to communicate.
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She learned sign language to better communicate with her deaf-and-dumb person friend.
Surface Forms
Morphology
deaf-and-dumb + person
The meaning 'a person who is deaf and unable to speak' is directly and compositionally derivable from the constituents 'deaf' (unable to hear), 'dumb' (unable to speak) and 'person', so a B1 learner who knows those words will understand the phrase. Note that the term is archaic and offensive (and that 'dumb' often also means 'stupid' in modern usage), but this pragmatic/pejorative status does not change its clear morphological transparency.
Etymology
Deaf-and-dumb person comes from an older use of dumb to mean 'unable to speak', so the phrase simply described someone who could not hear (deaf) and could not speak (dumb). Today the phrase is 'outdated' and 'offensive', so people now say 'deaf person' or 'person who is deaf'.