Word.ws English Dictionary

ear

/ˈɛː//ˈɪə̯/

ear noun: the organ of hearing, consisting of the pinna or auricle, auditory canal, eardrum, malleus, incus, stapes and cochlea.

ear: the organ of hearing, consisting of the pinna or auricle, auditory canal, eardrum, malleus, incus,...
Image: David Benbennick, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

ear (plural ears)

  1. (countable) The organ of hearing, consisting of the pinna or auricle, auditory canal, eardrum, malleus, incus, stapes and cochlea.
  2. (countable) The external part of the organ of hearing, the auricle.
    • 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.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
  3. (countable, slang) A police informant.
    • No I'm not kidding, and if you don't give it to me I'll let it out that you’re an ear.1976, Stirling Silliphant, Dean Riesner, Gail Morgan Hickman, The Enforcer
  4. The sense of hearing; the perception of sounds; skill or good taste in listening to music.
    • a good ear for music
    • songs[…]not all ungrateful to thine ear1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “(please specify |part=Prologue or Epilogue, or |canto=I to CXXIX)”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC
  5. The privilege of being kindly heard; favour; attention.
    • Dionysius[…]would give no ear to his suit.1625, Francis [Bacon], Apophthegmes New and Old. […], London: […] Hanna Barret, and Richard Whittaker, […], →OCLC
    • Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.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]...
  6. 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.
    • the ears of a tub, skillet, or dish; The ears of a boat are outside kneepieces near the bow.
    • 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.1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 291
  7. An acroterium.
  8. A crossette.
  9. A space to the left or right of a publication's front-page title, used for advertising, weather, etc.
    • In journalism, ears flank the title as boxes in the left and right top corners of a publication (generally a newspaper).2006, Richard Weiner, Charles M. Levine, The Skinny about Best Boys, Dollies, Green Rooms, Leads, and Other Media Lingo, page 26
  10. 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.
  11. The outer panels or flaps (protrusions) of a diaper upon which the fasteners are located, which are fastened around the wearer's waist.
  12. A path whose endpoints may coincide but in which otherwise there are no repetitions of vertices or edges.

Verb (1)

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

  1. (humorous, transitive) To take in with the ears; to hear.
    • I eared her language.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)...
  2. (transitive) To hold by the ears.
    • Sometimes, the helper eared the horse down; and sometimes he used a blindfold.1964, John Hendrix, If I Can Do It Horseback: A Cow-Country Sketchbook, page 40
    • 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.2013, Fay E. Ward, The Cowboy at Work

Noun (2)

ear (plural ears)

  1. (countable) The fruiting body of a grain plant.
    • He is in the fields, harvesting ears of corn.
    Synonyms:
    head, spike

Verb (2)

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.

Verb (3)

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

  1. (archaic) To plough.
    • That power I have, discharge; and let them go
      To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,
      For I have none.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...
    • 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 valley1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 21:4

Noun (3) capitalized: EAR

EAR (plural EARs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Enterprise Application Archive, a file format used to package Java applications.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism, nutrition) Initialism of estimated average requirements.

ear meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

ear in Hindi

organ of hearing
कान kān

ear in Tamil

organ of hearing
காது kātu, செவி cevi

ear in Marathi

organ of hearing
कान kān

ear in Urdu

organ of hearing
کان kān
More languagesFewer languages
ear in Bengali
কান kan, কর্ণ korno
ear in Telugu
చెవి cevi, కంకి kaṅki
ear in Malayalam
ചെവി cevi, കർണ്ണം kaṟṇṇaṁ
ear in Kannada
ಕಿವಿ kivi
ear in Punjabi
ਕੰਨ kann, کَنّ kann
ear in Gujarati
કાન kān
ear in Odia
କାନ kāna
ear in Sanskrit
कर्ण karṇa, श्रवण śravaṇa, श्रुति śruti
ear in Sinhala
කන kana
ear in Assamese
কাণ kan
ear in Nepali
कान kān
ear in Pashto
غوږ ǧwaẓ
ear in Tagalog
tainga, puso, uhay
ear in Arabic
أُذُن ʔuḏun, أُذْن ʔuḏn, سُنْبُلَة sunbula, حَرَثَ ḥaraṯa
ear in Malay
telinga, kuping
ear in Indonesian
telinga, kuping, bulir
ear in Persian
سنبله sonbole, خوشه xuše
ear in Thai
หู hǔu
ear in Vietnamese
tai, bông
ear in Myanmar
နား na:
Sindhi
ڪَنُ kanu
Dhivehi
ކަންފަތް kan̊fat̊

Examples of ear in a sentence

  • Your definition of "elephant" needs to be more precise than "a big animal with large ears".
  • The dog's ears pricked up at the sound of a whistle.
  • He breathed the words into her ear, but she understood them all.

All 40 example sentences with ear

Synonyms of ear

All synonyms of ear

Forms of ear

Noun
pluralears
alternative formere
pluralEARs
alternative form (archaic)eare
Verb
third-person singular presentears
present participleearing
past participleeared
pasteared

Past tense of ear: eared

Plural of ear: ears

Origin of ear

From Middle English eare, eere, ere, eyr, ire, yere, ȝhere, from Old English ēare (“ear”), from Proto-West Germanic *auʀā, from the voiced Verner alternant of Proto-Germanic *ausô (“ear”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ṓws (“ear”), from *h₂ew- (“to perceive”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian uaar, uar, uur (“ear”), Saterland Frisian Oor (“ear”), West Frisian ear (“ear”), Alemannic German Oor (“ear”), Central Franconian Uhr (“ear”), Dutch oor (“ear”), German Ohr (“ear”), Low German Ohr, Oor, Or, our, Ur (“ear”), Luxembourgish Ouer (“ear”), Vilamovian ür (“ear”), Yiddish אויער (oyer, “ear”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål øre (“ear”), Elfdalian ära (“ear”), Faroese oyra (“ear”), Icelandic eyra (“ear”), Jamtish ǿre (“ear”), Norwegian Nynorsk øra, øre, øyra, øyre (“ear”), Swedish öra (“ear”), Gothic 𐌰𐌿𐍃𐍉 (ausō, “ear”); also Old Irish áu, ó (“ear”), Latin auris, ōris (“ear”), Greek αφτί (aftí), αυτί (aftí, “ear”), Albanian vesh (“ear; handle”), Latvian auss (“ear”), Lithuanian ausis (“ear”), Belarusian ву́ха (vúxa, “ear”), Bulgarian ухо́ (uhó, “ear”), Czech, Polish, Silesian, and Slovak ucho (“ear”), Kashubian ùchò (“ear”), Lower Sorbian and Upper Sorbian wucho (“ear”), Macedonian уво...

From Middle English er, ere, from Old English ēar (Northumbrian dialect æhher), from Proto-West Germanic *ahaʀ, from Proto-Germanic *ahaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱ- (“sharp”). Cognate with Dutch aar, German Ähre, and West Frisian ier; also Latin acus (“needle; husk”), Tocharian B āk (“ear, awn”), and Old Church Slavonic ость (ostĭ, “wheat spike, sharp point”). More at edge.

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

Words formed from ear

Phrases with ear

157 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with ear

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about ear

What does ear mean?
Ear means the organ of hearing, consisting of the pinna or auricle, auditory canal, eardrum, malleus, incus, stapes and cochlea.
What is ear in Hindi?
Ear in Hindi is कान (kān). See Ear meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is ear?
Ear can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce ear?
Ear is pronounced /ˈɪə̯/ (UK).
What is the plural of ear?
The plural of ear is ears.

Words near ear in the dictionary

  1. EAPC
  2. EAPCs
  3. Eapen
  4. Eapens
  5. EAPs
  6. ear
  7. ear ball
  8. ear balls
  9. ear beer
  10. ear bob
  11. ear bobs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ear (page history and authors); EAR (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-uk-ear.ogg, En-ca-ear.ogg, En-us-ear.ogg.

Cite this entry: “ear.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ear. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.