mind's ear

English

Pronunciation

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Noun

mind's ear

1. (idiomatic) The mental faculty or inner sense with which one produces or reproduces imagined or recalled sounds solely within the mind; the supposed organ within the mind which experiences such sounds.
   • 1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter 6, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC:

     'I must read Shakespeare?' ¶ 'You must have his spirit before you; you must hear his voice with your mind's ear; you must take some of his soul into yours.'

   • 1916, Booth Tarkington, chapter 21, in Penrod and Sam:

     The likeness of the great bass horn remained upon the retina of his mind's eye, losing nothing of its brazen enormity with the passing of hours, nor abating, in his mind's ear, one whit of its fascinating blatancy.

   • 2002 January 27, Terry Teachout, “A Master and Mentor in Song”, in New York Times, retrieved 8 September 2009:

     Other people do "Don't Smoke in Bed" and "I've Got Your Number" and "You Came a Long Way From St. Louis," but when I hear them in my mind's ear, hers is the voice I hear.

Synonyms

• inner ear

See also

• anauralia (the absence of auditory imagery, particularly the lack of an "inner voice".)
• mind's eye

Anagrams

• Amerinds, dimerans, drimanes, sirnamed