Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The quality of being surd, in any sense; deafness; nonvocality.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Deafness.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete deafness

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin surditas.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word surdity.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • (noun) - (1) Deafness; adaptation of Latin surditas . . . from surdus, in an active sense, deaf; in a passive sense, silent, mute, dumb, dull, indistinct.

    --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919

    (2) The term surdism is applied to those degrees of deafness which make the acquisition of speech in the very young impossible by ordinary means.

    --D. Williams' Medical Discoveries of Infancy, 1898

    January 26, 2018