mind's ear
1
8.5
- noun
- /maɪndz ɪr/
:
oído interno
- When she got home, she wrote a very nice letter to them all thanking them, and she could hear them in her mind's ear saying what a nice, happy African woman she was.
- mind's ear hears
Examples
-
The comments of the artificially intelligent agent arrived via Kevin's neural implant, effectively direct to his mind's ear.
Fiction book (2001) -
These skills allow students to recall music in the mind's ear even when it is not physically present.
Academic text (1998) -
Auditory images are "heard" with the mind's ear in a context; that is, we associate every image with the context in which it was formed.
Academic text (2006) -
All night, as he rattled through the thick brush looking for a road to follow from concealment, Gillian's last hymn echoed in his mind's ear.
Fiction book (1996) -
"Whoa ho there, Dits," my mind's ear hears the gentle reader gently interpose: "Where's Hick Fen L?"
Fiction book (2001) -
As he practiced the piano, he could hear the notes clearly in his mind's ear.
-
When imagining the concert, she could play the entire symphony in her mind's ear.
-
Even without the music playing, I can still recall the melody perfectly in my mind's ear.
Synonyms
1
4.1
The skill of remembering and recognizing tunes and musical sounds
The ability to hear music in your mind without any real sound
A sound that you imagine in your mind as if you hear it
How Vivid
Surface Forms
Morphology
mind's + ear
The phrase literally denotes the 'ear' of the 'mind' — an inner hearing — so a learner who knows 'mind' and 'ear' and understands possessive construction can infer it means imagining or recalling sounds. This metaphorical extension of 'ear' to inner perception is direct and cross-linguistically common, making the meaning readily derivable from the constituents.
Etymology
Mind's ear paints the image of an inner ear inside your mind that hears music or speech when there is no sound. So, it means 'to imagine or recall sounds' as if you are actually hearing them.