"flea in one's ear" meaning in English

See flea in one's ear in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-flea in one's ear.ogg Forms: fleas in one's ear [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|fleas in one's ear}} flea in one's ear (plural fleas in one's ear)
  1. (idiomatic) A stinging rebuke or rebuff. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-flea_in_one's_ear-en-noun-UOIgI3Tv Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "fleas in one's ear",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "fleas in one's ear"
      },
      "expansion": "flea in one's ear (plural fleas in one's ear)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "If he bothers me again, I'll send him home with a flea in his ear.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1810, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper:",
          "text": "Thus spoke the pert hussy and view'd me all round With an eye of disdain and thrice spit on the ground; Look'd proud of her charms, with an insolent sneer, And sent me away with a flea in my ear.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1979, Dervla Murphy, Wheels Within Wheels:",
          "text": "\"I came away with two fleas in each ear,\" Mark recalled cheerfully, ten years later.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Don Oslear, Wisden's The Laws Of Cricket, →ISBN:",
          "text": "As for him getting a flea in his ear, when I had finished with him he did not have an ear left into which a flea could have been deposited.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Hannah Jane Locker-Lampson, A Selection From the Works of Frederick Locker, →ISBN:",
          "text": "For when she got home her Instructress severe / Dismissed her to bed with a Flea in her Ear.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A stinging rebuke or rebuff."
      ],
      "id": "en-flea_in_one's_ear-en-noun-UOIgI3Tv",
      "links": [
        [
          "rebuke",
          "rebuke"
        ],
        [
          "rebuff",
          "rebuff"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A stinging rebuke or rebuff."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-flea in one's ear.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4d/En-au-flea_in_one%27s_ear.ogg/En-au-flea_in_one%27s_ear.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/En-au-flea_in_one%27s_ear.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "flea in one's ear"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "fleas in one's ear",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "fleas in one's ear"
      },
      "expansion": "flea in one's ear (plural fleas in one's ear)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "If he bothers me again, I'll send him home with a flea in his ear.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1810, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper:",
          "text": "Thus spoke the pert hussy and view'd me all round With an eye of disdain and thrice spit on the ground; Look'd proud of her charms, with an insolent sneer, And sent me away with a flea in my ear.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1979, Dervla Murphy, Wheels Within Wheels:",
          "text": "\"I came away with two fleas in each ear,\" Mark recalled cheerfully, ten years later.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Don Oslear, Wisden's The Laws Of Cricket, →ISBN:",
          "text": "As for him getting a flea in his ear, when I had finished with him he did not have an ear left into which a flea could have been deposited.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Hannah Jane Locker-Lampson, A Selection From the Works of Frederick Locker, →ISBN:",
          "text": "For when she got home her Instructress severe / Dismissed her to bed with a Flea in her Ear.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A stinging rebuke or rebuff."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "rebuke",
          "rebuke"
        ],
        [
          "rebuff",
          "rebuff"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A stinging rebuke or rebuff."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-flea in one's ear.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4d/En-au-flea_in_one%27s_ear.ogg/En-au-flea_in_one%27s_ear.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/En-au-flea_in_one%27s_ear.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "flea in one's ear"
}

Download raw JSONL data for flea in one's ear meaning in English (2.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.