eared

1. 1
   adjective

   Having ears, the organs used for hearing.

   Eared mammals have outer ear flaps that fish and amphibians lack.

   Most eared mammals can rotate their ears toward a sound.

   Oppositeearless

   Note

   Without a describing word in front, the adjective can stretch to things shaped as if they had ears. Eric Rücker Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros (1922) serves "great eared wine jars," and the ears there are the jars' handles. This standalone use is much rarer than the compounding use, and it reads as deliberately old-fashioned, which suits Eddison's mock-antique romance.

2. 2
   adjectivein compounds

   Having ears of a specified type, usually named by a describing word placed in front.

   Eared seals differ from true seals in having visible external ear flaps.

   The eared grebe sports golden tufts behind its eyes during the breeding season.

   Note

   A word that rarely stands alone: built from ear + -ed, it usually forms the second half of a compound, as in large-eared or the insult "prickeard cur" in Shakespeare's The Cronicle History of Henry the Fift (1599). The ears need not be for hearing. Tate and Brady's New Version of the Psalms (1796) binds "full-ear'd sheaves," where the ears are heads of grain. Before a noun the compound takes a hyphen: a large-eared man.

3. 3
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of ear.

   The barley eared before the drought set in.

   By midsummer the rye had eared across the whole valley.

   Note

   The past form of a verb with several unrelated jobs. Most often it is grain that has eared, meaning it has put forth its heads. That use is intransitive, so it forms its perfect with have and has no passive. The transitive senses do allow a passive: in the archaic sense of ploughing, a field can be eared. Do not confuse the verb form with the adjective, which means "having ears."

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