noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The ear. humorous, plural-normally

   "to keep one's earballs open"

2. 2
   The act or an instance of listening.
3. 3
   A small ball kept in position in the ear and pressed when needed to relieve stress.

Verb

1. 1
   To listen, especially to check. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms

attendbe all earsbeheareargive earhark

Example

More examples

"My earballs hurt from listening to this."

Etymology

From ear + ball. Noun noun sense 1 and verb verb sense 1 is modeled after eyeball.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.