Word.ws English Dictionary

earball

Syllables: ear·ballUK/ˈɪə.bɔːl//ˈɪəɹ.bɔl/

earball noun: the ear.

Noun

earball (plural earballs)

  1. (humorous, plural-normally) The ear.
    • to keep one's earballs open
    • up to one's earballs
    Synonyms:
    ear, King Lear, listener, lug, shell-like
  2. The act or an instance of listening.
  3. A small ball kept in position in the ear and pressed when needed to relieve stress.

Verb

earball (third-person singular simple present earballs, present participle earballing, simple past and past participle earballed)

  1. (transitive) To listen, especially to check.
    Synonyms:
    attend, be all ears, behear, give ear, hark, harken, heed, lend an ear, list, listen close

Examples of earball in a sentence

  • My earballs hurt from listening to this.
  • “Ha!” “Oh for-- why doesn't everybody just come in here?” “It's O.K., we can hear from out here!” “With our earballs!”2011 April 21, Adam Reed, “Double Trouble” (1:52 from the start), in Archer, season 2, episode 13, spoken by Cheryl Tunt (Judy Greer):
  • We've talked occasionally on the channel about my hearing problems, and we'll do another video about protecting your earballs and such […]2023 September 25, Deviant Ollam, 6:29 from the start, in Deviant's Travel Bag Breakdown (video), YouTube:

Synonyms of earball

7 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of earball

Noun
pluralearballs
alternative formear ball
Verb
third-person singular presentearballs
present participleearballing
past participleearballed
pastearballed

Origin of earball

From ear + ball. Noun sense 1 and the verb are modeled after eyeball.

Questions about earball

What does earball mean?
Earball means the ear.
How do you use earball in a sentence?
My earballs hurt from listening to this.
What part of speech is earball?
Earball can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce earball?
Earball is pronounced /ˈɪə.bɔːl/ (UK).
What is the plural of earball?
The plural of earball is earballs.

Words near earball in the dictionary

  1. earache
  2. earaches
  3. earage
  4. earal
  5. earasaid
  6. earball
  7. earballed
  8. earballing
  9. earballs
  10. earband
  11. earbands

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: earball (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-earball.wav.

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