The term presbycusis is vague and needs specific signs and symptoms for its definition. Several types of presbycusis, depending on the type of lesion, have been proposed. This article suggests a working definition of "classic presbycusis," which may be defined as a syndrome involving (1) a bilaterally symmetric sensorineural hearing loss, (2) absent or partial recruitment, (3) negative noise history, and (4) poorer speech discrimination than indicated by pure tones (phonemic regression).