ear

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪə̯/

• Audio (Received Pronunciation):

  (file)

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ɪəɹ/, /ˈiɹ/

• Audio (Canada):

  (file)

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ɪə̯/, [ɪː], [ɪə̯~ɪɐ̯]
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /iə̯/, [iːə̯], [ɪə̯~eə̯]
• Homophones: air, heir, -eer
• Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)

From Middle English ere, eare, from Old English ēare (“ear”), from Proto-West Germanic *auʀā, from the voiced Verner alternant of Proto-Germanic *ausô (“ear”) (compare Scots ear, West Frisian ear, Dutch oor, German Ohr, Swedish öra, Danish øre), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ṓws (compare Old Irish áu, Latin auris, Lithuanian ausìs, Russian у́хо (úxo), Albanian vesh, Ancient Greek οὖς (oûs), Old Armenian ունկն (unkn), and Persian گوش (gôš)).

ear (plural ears)

2. (countable) The organ of hearing, consisting of the pinna/auricle, auditory canal, eardrum, malleus, incus, stapes and cochlea.
3. (countable) The external part of the organ of hearing, the auricle.
   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.

4. (countable, slang) A police informant.
   • 1976, Stirling Silliphant, Dean Riesner, Gail Morgan Hickman, The Enforcer:

     No I'm not kidding, and if you don't give it to me I'll let it out that you’re an ear.

5. The sense of hearing; the perception of sounds; skill or good taste in listening to music.

   a good ear for music

   • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, (please specify |part=Prologue or Rpilogue, or |canto=I to CXXIX):

     songs […] not all ungrateful to thine ear

6. The privilege of being kindly heard; favour; attention.
   • 1625, Francis [Bacon], Apophthegmes New and Old. […], London: […] Hanna Barret, and Richard Whittaker, […], →OCLC:

     Dionysius […] would give no ear to his suit.

   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

   • 1990 August 19, Uwe Stelbrink, quotee, “Fear and uncertainty breed xenophobia in E. Germany”, in Democrat and Chronicle, volume 158, Rochester, N.Y., page 5A:

     They don’t know if they’re going to have a job in a week or a month. They don’t know if they can pay the rising prices. Instead of the paradise they expected July 1, their total existence is unsure. That some foreigners get beaten—nobody has an ear for that now.

8. That which resembles in shape or position the ear of an animal; a prominence or projection on an object, usually for support or attachment; a lug; a handle; a foot-rest or step of a spade or a similar digging tool.

   Coordinate terms: boss, eye

   the ears of a tub, skillet, or dish;   The ears of a boat are outside kneepieces near the bow.

   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 291:

     When they got as far as the little valley north of Oppenhagen - where the land-slip took place - he thought he sat between the ears of a bucket; but shortly this vanished also, and it was only then he really came to himself again.

9. (architecture) An acroterium.
10. (architecture) A crossette.
11. (journalism) A space to the left or right of a publication's front-page title, used for advertising, weather, etc.
    • 2006, Richard Weiner, Charles M. Levine, The Skinny about Best Boys, Dollies, Green Rooms, Leads, and Other Media Lingo, page 26:

      In journalism, ears flank the title as boxes in the left and right top corners of a publication (generally a newspaper).

12. (baking) A curled ridge in the crust of a loaf of bread where the dough was slashed before going into the oven and expands during baking.
13. (graph theory) A path whose endpoints may coincide but in which otherwise there are no repetitions of vertices or edges.

• ere (obsolete)

• auricle
• auricula
• pinna

• English terms starting with “ear”

• Tok Pisin: ia

ear (third-person singular simple present ears, present participle earing, simple past and past participle eared)

1. (humorous) To take in with the ears; to hear.
   • 1613–1614 (date written), John Fletcher, William Shak[e]speare, The Two Noble Kinsmen: […], London: […] Tho[mas] Cotes, for Iohn Waterson;  […], published 1634, →OCLC, (please specify the page), (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     I eared her language.

2. To hold by the ears.
   • 1964, John Hendrix, If I Can Do It Horseback: A Cow-Country Sketchbook, page 40:

     Sometimes, the helper eared the horse down; and sometimes he used a blindfold.

   • 2013, Fay E. Ward, The Cowboy at Work:

     The general technique was to rope the horse around the neck, and, while one or two men eared the horse down (held him by the ears), the rider saddled the animal and stepped above him.

• ear on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• aural

From Middle English eere, er, from Old English ēar (Northumbrian dialect æhher), from Proto-West Germanic *ahaʀ, from Proto-Germanic *ahaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱ- (“sharp”).

See also West Frisian ier, Dutch aar, German Ähre; also Latin acus (“needle; husk”), Tocharian B āk (“ear, awn”), Old Church Slavonic ость (ostĭ, “wheat spike, sharp point”). More at edge.

ear (plural ears)

2. (countable) The fruiting body of a grain plant.

   He is in the fields, harvesting ears of corn.

• head
• spike

• corn earworm
• earshoot

ear (third-person singular simple present ears, present participle earing, simple past and past participle eared)

1. (intransitive) To put forth ears in growing; to form ears, as grain does.

   This corn ears well.

From Middle English eren, from Old English erian, from Proto-West Germanic *arjan, from Proto-Germanic *arjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂erh₃- (“to plough”).

ear (third-person singular simple present ears, present participle earing, simple past and past participle eared)

1. (archaic) To plough.
   • 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     That power I have, discharge; and let them go
     To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,
     For I have none.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 21:4:

     And the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer unto a rough valley, which is neither eared nor sown, and shall strike off the heifer's neck there in the valley

• earable

• Åre, Rea, rea, REA, aer-, A.R.E., ReA, ARE, aër-, Are, Aer, ERA, era, are, Rae

• IPA^(key): /aɾˠ/

ear

1. The name of the Latin-script letter r/R.

• (Latin-script letter names) litir; á, bé, cé, dé, é, eif, gé, héis, í, jé, cá, eil, eim, ein, ó, pé, cú, ear, eas, té, ú, vé, wae, ex, yé, zae
• Note: The English names are also widely used by Irish speakers.

ear

1. first-person singular present passive subjunctive of eō

ear

1. Alternative form of eere (“ear of grain”)

• IPA^(key): /æ͜ɑːr/

From Proto-West Germanic *aur, from Proto-Germanic *auraz. Akin to Old Norse aurr (“mud”).

ēar m

1. billow, wave
2. sea, ocean
3. earth

Strong a-stem:

• Old English: Ēarmūþa
  • English: Yarmouth

From Proto-West Germanic *ahaʀ, from Proto-Germanic *ahaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱ- (“pointed”).

• æhher — Northumbrian

ēar n

1. ear (of corn)

Strong a-stem:

• Middle English: eere, ear, ere, er, ȝer, eyre
  • English: ear
  • Scots: aicher, icker, aiker (< æhher)

ear (not comparable)

1. Alternative form of air (“early”)

• “ear, adv., adj.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.

From Old Irish an air (literally “from before”), equivalent to modern a (“from”) + air (“before”).

ear f

1. east

   Antonym: iar

(compass points)

iar-thuath	tuath	ear-thuath
iar		ear
iar-dheas	deas	ear-dheas

• Edward Dwelly (1911) “ear”, in Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan [The Illustrated Gaelic–English Dictionary]‎^[1], 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN
• “ear” in Am Faclair Beag - Scottish Gaelic Dictionary.
• “ear”, in LearnGaelic - Dictionary‎^[2], 2021

From Old Frisian āre, from Proto-West Germanic *auʀā, from the voiced Verner alternant of Proto-Germanic *ausô, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ṓws.

ear n (plural earen, diminutive earke)

1. ear

• earbel
• earring

• “ear (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011

From Middle English er, from Old English ǣr, from Proto-West Germanic *airi.

• IPA^(key): /iː/
• Homophones: aare, e'er, ere

ear

1. ere, before
   • 1867, GLOSSARY OF THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, page 80:

     Ear yersthei.

     Ere yesterday.

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 37