🎶 A stuck song 🔁 A stuck thought

earworm

1 5.5

A short song or tune that keeps repeating in your mind

noun
/ˈɪrˌwɜrm/

: canción pegajosa

After hearing that song at the party, it became an earworm that played in my head for hours.

Examples

Arrived, it has turned into one of those earworms that will get stuck in your head for days on end.

Blog text (22)
It's all fizzy, twangy, and puppy dog froth with earworm choruses you'll sing after the first listen.

Blog text (4)
The single was recently featured on Entertainment Weekly's "Must List," which noted that the "acoustic-guitar-driven earworm... manages to turn a put-your-lips-together command and some simple strumming into a club-ready jam."

Blog text (12)
The catchy melody of that commercial turned into an earworm that I couldn't shake off all day.
Many people find that certain songs become an earworm and stick with them long after they've heard them.

Synonyms

catchy tune

vsearworm

3 1.9

A melody like a song in an ad that is easy to remember and sing

repeats involuntarily in the mind and is hard to forget

catchy hook

vsearworm

3.2

A short easy to remember musical phrase that repeats in a song

repeats inside the mind on its own rather than only during a song

Compounds

corn earworm

Specialized

8.1

A caterpillar that eats and damages corn and other crop plants

How Catchy

earworm

1 5.5

hook

149 3.4

catchy tune

3 1.9

melody

146 1.8

Surface Forms

earworm singular

earworms plural

Morphology

earworm = ear + worm (semi-transparent) = ear + worm

Formed as a compound 'ear' + 'worm' with a clear metaphor (something that gets into the ear), but the specific idiomatic sense 'a catchy tune' is metaphorical and not directly inferable by all learners.

Etymology

The word earworm comes from the simple image of ear and worm, like a little 'worm' stuck in your ear. It was first used for a catchy tune that keeps repeating, so an earworm is a song you cannot stop hearing in your mind.