Word.ws English Dictionary

prick one's ears

prick one's ears is the alternative form of prick up one's ears.

Meaning of prick up one's ears

Verb

prick up one's ears (third-person singular simple present pricks up one's ears, present participle pricking up one's ears, simple past and past participle pricked up one's ears)

  1. To listen attentively.
    • 'I doubt if you will ever have met "Rainproof" Nogg,' wrote one about this time—a shrewd old lady whose Dutch-sounding name caused pushful young hostesses to prick up their ears even when it reached them at third hand.1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries

Forms of prick one's ears

third-person singular presentpricks one's ears
present participlepricking one's ears
past participlepricked one's ears
pastpricked one's ears

Questions about prick one's ears

What is prick one's ears the alternative form of?
Prick one's ears is the alternative form of prick up one's ears.

Words near prick one's ears in the dictionary

  1. pricings
  2. prick
  3. prick farrier
  4. prick farriers
  5. prick of perfection
  6. prick one's ears
  7. prick out
  8. prick post
  9. prick posts
  10. prick punch
  11. prick punches

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prick one's ears (page history and authors); prick up one'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.

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