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Glite Dictionary
my ears are burning

my ears are burning

1 9.0
You feel that people are talking about you when you are not there
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : me están sonando las orejas
  • Whenever people whisper and laugh, I can't help but think my ears are burning.

Examples

  • She walked into the room and said, 'My ears are burning; were you talking about me?'

  • I just heard someone say my name; my ears are burning!

  • You must have been discussing me at lunch; my ears are burning!

  • Whenever I feel this way, I think my ears are burning.

  • I felt like my ears are burning when I heard them whispering my name.

  • When my friends laughed from the other room, I just knew my ears are burning.

  • Every time I walk by their table, I get the feeling my ears are burning.

Synonyms

to feel my ears burning
vsmy ears are burning
  • Informal
1 8.8

A sudden sense that people are talking about you, often when your name is said

refers more generally to suspecting people talk about you, especially when absent

Surface Forms

my ears are burning main

Morphology

mine + ear + be + burning

The idiomatic sense 'people are talking about you' cannot be compositionally derived from the literal meanings of 'my' + 'ears' + 'are' + 'burning'; a B1 learner who knows the words would most likely interpret a physical sensation rather than infer people are gossiping. This is a culturally based superstition/metaphor with no transparent semantic connection to the constituents, making the phrase unpredictable without prior exposure.

Etymology

My ears are burning comes from an old idea: people thought their ears grew warm or tingly when someone talked about them, as if the ears were 'burning'. So today we say my ears are burning to mean 'people are talking about you', often when we hear whispers or laughter.