Word.ws English Dictionary

pricks up one's ears

pricks up one's ears is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 pricks up one's ears

What is pricks up one's ears the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Pricks up one's ears is the third-person singular simple present indicative of prick up one's ears.

Words near pricks up one's ears in the dictionary

  1. prickpunches
  2. pricks
  3. pricks one's ears
  4. pricks out
  5. pricks up
  6. pricks up one's ears
  7. prickshaft
  8. prickshafts
  9. pricksong
  10. pricksongs
  11. prickt

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pricks 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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