How to Use tone-deaf in a Sentence

tone-deaf

adjective
  • Many have accused me of being tone-deaf.
    — Marc Brackett, Time, 28 Oct. 2025
  • And then this week came perhaps the most tone-deaf moment yet.
    — Mike Bianchi, The Orlando Sentinel, 16 May 2026
  • To file a lawsuit right now makes the owner look tone-deaf, and blind.
    — Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 11 Nov. 2025
  • But that should be no excuse for appearing to sound so tone-deaf.
    — Dan Perry, Newsweek, 13 Feb. 2025
  • It’s lined with palm trees that always seem out of place to me, tone-deaf in their presence.
    — Hazlitt, 28 June 2022
  • Fans quickly slammed the ad as tone-deaf and exploitative.
    — Ashley Hume, FOXNews.com, 14 Oct. 2025
  • But Met Gala was a tone-deaf charade of excess and hypocrisy.
    — Jane Onyanga-Omara, USA TODAY, 8 May 2024
  • Move over, Kendall Jenner, there's a new tone-deaf ad starlet in town.
    — Anna Kaufman, USA Today, 30 July 2025
  • Critics claim the ad is tone-deaf for mocking striking workers.
    — Reia Li, AZCentral.com, 4 Nov. 2025
  • This is an offensive and tone-deaf gesture that holds the people in contempt.
    — Town & Country, 6 May 2023
  • Meek Mill is not the only rapper to share his opinion on the tone-deaf statement.
    — Demicia Inman, VIBE.com, 16 Aug. 2024
  • This is yet another tone-deaf slap in the face from our out-of-touch public utilities.
    — Edmund H. Mahony, Hartford Courant, 12 Nov. 2024
  • Again and again, Gabbard had shown herself tone-deaf in appealing to him.
    — Andreas Kluth, Twin Cities, 28 May 2026
  • These two examples show how tone-deaf marketing can destroy trust.
    — Angelique Kuiper, Rolling Stone, 5 Mar. 2025
  • From this vantage point, the debate in Washington feels tone-deaf.
    — Ken Toltz, Denver Post, 5 Mar. 2026
  • Many commentators criticized the flight as a tone-deaf stunt or a rich person's flex.
    — ArsTechnica, 22 Apr. 2025
  • Meanwhile, those record revenues make the timing of loyalty program changes feel even more tone-deaf.
    — Roger Dooley, Forbes.com, 25 June 2025
  • Lavender went on a listening tour with customers, who were quick to share that Intel had been tone-deaf.
    — Fortune Editors, Fortune, 5 June 2024
  • Well, not just for his karaoke performance, but for what many golf fans see as a tone-deaf response to a serious issue.
    — Devlina Sarkar, MSNBC Newsweek, 10 Oct. 2025
  • The commenters had an absolute field day with what many view as a tone-deaf and retrogressive fashion shoot.
    — Kathleen Walsh, Glamour, 28 Nov. 2023
  • Many Democrats viewed the event as tone-deaf, given that millions of Americans were on the brink of hunger.
    — Garrett Haake, NBC news, 3 Nov. 2025
  • To some people, this preoccupation with horror can seem tone-deaf.
    — Sarah Kollat, Discover Magazine, 25 Oct. 2024
  • Plus the Mavs tone-deaf attempts to justify the trade keep making everything worse.
    — Zach Harper, The Athletic, 19 Feb. 2025
  • The character’s history is silly, tone-deaf, and rife with stereotypes.
    — Darren Franich, Vulture, 14 Feb. 2025
  • Left-leaning users have called the campaign’s posts tone-deaf in light of the ongoing atrocities in Gaza.
    — Makena Kelly, WIRED, 24 Feb. 2024
  • Sure, the new ad is tone-deaf — after all, Apple rose to prominence by aligning itself with creative types.
    — Elizabeth Lopatto, The Verge, 9 May 2024
  • The way forward is not to abandon liberalism, but to save it—from its worst excesses, its blind spots, and its tone-deaf elites.
    — MSNBC Newsweek, 20 May 2025
  • Most smug articles and books that claim to provide quick fixes come off as tone-deaf or even counterproductive.
    — Anna Holmes, The Atlantic, 27 May 2026
  • His comments went viral, drawing sharp criticism online from people who saw the remarks as tone-deaf and out of touch.
    — Brian Cattell, Forbes.com, 7 May 2025
  • What one team sees as transparent, another may experience as tone-deaf.
    — Taazima Kala, Forbes.com, 21 Aug. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tone-deaf.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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