the sense organ for hearing and equilibrium
"She gently touched his ear to check if he was feeling better after catching a cold."
The organ of hearing, consisting of the pinna, auditory canal, eardrum, malleus, incus, stapes and cochlea.
"The developer uploaded the EAR file to the server so the team could deploy the new customer portal application."
The fruiting body of a grain plant.
Initialism of Enterprise Application Archive (a file format used to package Java applications)
In plain English: An ear is the part of your head that helps you hear sounds and balance your body.
"She gently touched his ear to hear what he whispered."
Usage: Use "ear" to refer to the hearing organ on an animal's head or the leaf-like appendage of a plant like corn. Do not use this word for the Enterprise Application Archive file format, which is an acronym that should always be written in all capital letters as EAA.
To take in with the ears; to hear.
"The farmer decided to ear the field before the first frost arrived."
To put forth ears in growing; to form ears, as grain does.
To plough.
In plain English: To ear something means to dig out grain from the ground, though this specific usage is very rare and mostly found in old farming stories.
"The farmer would ear a fresh field each spring."
Usage: The verb "ear" means to clear land by plowing it in preparation for planting crops. This usage is now archaic and rarely heard in modern conversation, so you should generally avoid using it unless writing historical fiction or poetry.
The word "ear" comes from the Old English ēare, which descended through Middle English from Proto-Germanic roots meaning "ear." This ancient term traveled into English with its original meaning intact, sharing a common ancestor with similar words in many other European languages.