all ears
27
4.4
- idiom
- Informal
:
todo oídos
- Look, if you have a magic bullet, I'm all ears.
- I am all ears
Everybody's going to be all ears, all eyes, all ready to go.
- Everybody's going to be all ears, all eyes, all ready to go.
- Anything, any sort of way of doing this, we're all ears.
- And if you have any ideas of potentially negative experiences, I'm all ears.
- If there's something that you have that can legally be added to this, I'm all ears.
- There's one thing that you really need to work on and all ears when you're at that kind of meeting.
Examples
-
Seriously, if you've got a plan to do that, I'm all ears, as it's better than my nuke-based option.
Blog text (11) -
When they need to announce a critical safety message, they want all ears and eyes on them—no distractions.
Blog text (24) -
And big brother is all ears.
Academic text (1993) -
The President is all ears.
Fiction book (1997) -
And if you can think of a better way to get her to eat, well I'm all ears.
-
If you can figure out a way to make that happen, I'm all ears.
Blog text (5) -
If you have suggestions for how we can improve Food Safety News, we're all ears.
Blog text (10) -
If anyone knows a good way that should have been handled, I'm all ears!
Blog text (19) -
If you have restaurant recommendations, cute store recommendations, or fun activities, I'm all ears.
Blog text (20) -
I'm all ears; please tell me your plans for the project.
Synonyms
61
3.0
Paying close attention and caring about someone's needs
Antonyms
How Attentive
- Informal
27
4.4
61
3.0
68
1.0
- Informal
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase uses a simple intensifier 'all' plus the body-part 'ears' used figuratively for listening, so a learner who knows both words can plausibly infer 'fully attentive' by mapping 'ears' to listening and 'all' to totality. However, the meaning rests on a conventional metaphor rather than strict compositional semantics, so it is interpretable but not purely literal or fully predictable without exposure.
Etymology
The idiom all ears may come from the image of a person made only of ears, so all of them are listening to every sound. That's why all ears means 'fully attentive' and ready to listen.