Dictionary

earie en · NOUN

Etymology

From ear + -ie.

Meanings

1. (childish, colloquial, diminutive, form-of, rare) Diminutive of ear.
   form of ear
   • ‘Come Balkán, give me your earie,’ Sásho tried to apply disinfectant to Balkán’s torn ear but he trotted off to catch up with the flock. You can’t get sick on this job. 2024, Kapka Kassabova, “The Orphaned Ones”, in Anima: A Wild Pastoral, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, part 2 (Communion):
   • I could not sit down and write twenty pages describing the appalling, heart-breaking grief of Araminta Susan St. Clair, for the eternal absence of her Fitz-James Eustace Simmons, who has departed this morning not to return till evening; nor twenty tearful stanzas on the death of / “My darling little dearie, / With curling little earie, / With little eye so cheery, / And with limbs ne’er a-weary, / A trotting after me!” / [‘]vich vas a tog!’ as [Joseph] Jefferson said in Rip Van Winkle. No! such things are far beyond my talent. I wil leave novel-writing to women and ministers of the gospel. 1870 February, Jean Pry [pseudonym], “Jonathan Ferret: A Journalistic Seance”, in Leisure Hours […], volume III, number V, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Philadelphia, Pa.: […] O’Dwyer & Co., […], →OCLC, page 173:
   • Eh bien, cornegidouille, écoute-moi bien, ſinon ces meſſieurs te couperont les oneilles. Mais, vas-tu m’écouter enfin ? […] Eh ! ſire Cotice, votre oneille, comment va-t-elle ? 2009 [1896], Alfred Jarry, translated by David Ball, “Ubu the King”, in J. Ellen Gainor, Stanton B. Garner Jr., Martin Puchner, edited by Peter Simon, The Norton Anthology of Drama, volume 2 (The Nineteenth Century to the Present), New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, pages 323 (act 3, scene 4) and 331 (act 4, scene 5):
   • We Australians are pretty easy to recognise by our turn of phrase – especially the way that we shorten words and then shove a vowel or two on the end. Fire officer becomes “firie”, tradesperson becomes “tradie”, and a tin of beer gets called a “tinnie”. So lend me your “earies”, and I’ll tell you the story of how “self-portrait photograph” became “selfie”. Yep, we Australians brought this new word into the English language – and I had a small part in this process. 2014, Karl Kruszelnicki, “Selfie”, in House of Karls, Sydney, N.S.W.: Pan Macmillan Australia, →ISBN, page 207:
   • Her cunning little earie / Can almost seem to hear ye / Thinking, when she’s near ye,- / Out at Enn-goni-a! 1900 November 2, J. Service (Enngonia, N.S.W.), “Poets’ Corner. Song—Leenie.”, in Irvine Herald and Ayrshire Advertiser, 30th year, number 1535, Irvine, Ayrshire, →OCLC, page 2, column 1:

Forms

Relateds

on the earie · earsies