flea in one's ear

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

flea in one's ear (plural fleas in one's ear)

1. (idiomatic) A stinging rebuke or rebuff.

   If he bothers me again, I'll send him home with a flea in his ear.

   • 1810, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper:

     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.

   • 1979, Dervla Murphy, Wheels Within Wheels:

     "I came away with two fleas in each ear," Mark recalled cheerfully, ten years later.

   • 2010, Don Oslear, Wisden's The Laws Of Cricket, →ISBN:

     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.

   • 2012, Hannah Jane Locker-Lampson, A Selection From the Works of Frederick Locker, →ISBN:

     For when she got home her Instructress severe / Dismissed her to bed with a Flea in her Ear.