Word.ws English Dictionary

flea in one's ear

flea in one's ear noun: a stinging rebuke or rebuff.

Noun

flea in one's ear (plural fleas in one's ear)

  1. (idiomatic) A stinging rebuke or rebuff.
    • If he bothers me again, I'll send him home with a flea in his ear.
    • Thus spoke the pert hussy and view'd me all round With an eye of disdain and thrice spit on the ground; Look'd proud of her charms, with an insolent sneer, And sent me away with a flea in my ear.1810, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper

Forms of flea in one's ear

pluralfleas in one's ear

Questions about flea in one's ear

What does flea in one's ear mean?
Flea in one's ear means a stinging rebuke or rebuff.
What part of speech is flea in one's ear?
Flea in one's ear is a noun.
What is the plural of flea in one's ear?
The plural of flea in one's ear is fleas in one's ear.

Words near flea in one's ear in the dictionary

  1. flea circuses
  2. flea collar
  3. flea collars
  4. flea flicker
  5. flea flickers
  6. flea in one's ear
  7. flea market
  8. flea marketer
  9. flea marketers
  10. flea markets
  11. flea pit

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: flea in one's 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-flea in one's ear.ogg.

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