Word.ws English Dictionary

donkey's ears

donkey's ears noun: a long time, years and years.

donkey's ears: a long time, years and years
Image: SleafordSue, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

donkey's ears pl (plural only)

  1. (UK, idiomatic, plural, plural-only) A long time, years and years.
    • Now for my first bath for what the men call ‘Donkey’s ears’, meaning years and years.1916, E. V. Lucas, The Vermilion Box
  2. (plural, plural-only, slang) A pair of scissor binoculars.
    Synonyms:
    ages, donkey's years, years and years, yonks

Synonyms of donkey's ears

Origin of donkey's ears

1916 UK, from British rhyming slang, rhyming with years, due to donkey’s ears being long.

Words formed from donkey's ears

Questions about donkey's ears

What does donkey's ears mean?
Donkey's ears means a long time, years and years.
What part of speech is donkey's ears?
Donkey's ears is a noun.

Words near donkey's ears in the dictionary

  1. donkey voter
  2. donkey voters
  3. donkey votes
  4. donkey work
  5. donkey's
  6. donkey's ears
  7. donkey's eye
  8. donkey's years
  9. donkey-boy
  10. donkey-boyed
  11. donkey-boying

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: donkey's ears (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-donkey's ears.ogg.

Cite this entry: “donkey's ears.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/donkey%27s_ears. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.