Word.ws English Dictionary

pricking up one's ears

pricking up one's ears is the present participle and gerund 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 pricking up one's ears

What is pricking up one's ears the present participle and gerund of?
Pricking up one's ears is the present participle and gerund of prick up one's ears.

Words near pricking up one's ears in the dictionary

  1. pricking
  2. pricking at the belt
  3. pricking one's ears
  4. pricking out
  5. pricking up
  6. pricking up one's ears
  7. pricking-up
  8. prickingly
  9. prickings
  10. prickish
  11. prickishness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pricking 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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