ear
noun · verb
Simple meaning
The organ of hearing, made up of the pinna or auricle, auditory canal, eardrum, malleus, incus, stapes and cochlea.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
irIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɪɹ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
countable
The organ of hearing, consisting of the pinna or auricle, auditory canal, eardrum, malleus, incus, stapes and cochlea.
countable
The external part of the organ of hearing, the auricle.
The sense of hearing; the perception of sounds; skill or good taste in listening to music.
The sense organ for hearing and equilibrium
The privilege of being kindly heard; favour; attention.
countable
The fruiting body of a grain plant.
verb
intransitive
To put forth ears in growing; to form ears, as grain does.
transitive
To hold by the ears.
humoroustransitive
To take in with the ears; to hear.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The organ of hearing, consisting of the pinna or auricle, auditory canal, eardrum, malleus, incus, stapes and cochlea.
Used this way, ear is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- pinna , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use ear
- “He tried to get her ear.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.