Word.ws English Dictionary

pricked up one's ears

pricked up one's ears is the simple past and past participle 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

Questions about pricked up one's ears

What is pricked up one's ears the simple past and past participle of?
Pricked up one's ears is the simple past and past participle of prick up one's ears.

Words near pricked up one's ears in the dictionary

  1. prick-teases
  2. pricked
  3. pricked one's ears
  4. pricked out
  5. pricked up
  6. pricked up one's ears
  7. pricker
  8. prickerbush
  9. prickerbushes
  10. prickers
  11. prickery

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pricked up 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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