bend (one's) ear

To talk to one for a long time, usually causing them to become bored or annoyed. Do you guys need any help in the kitchen? Uncle Stu has been bending my ear about the stock market for the past hour! I'm sorry, I've been bending your ear about the goings-on at City Hall for a while now. Leave it to Grandpa to bend our ear about the weather for almost the entire dinner.

See also: bend, ear

bend someone's ear

Fig. to talk to someone, perhaps annoyingly. (As if talking so much that the other person's ear is moved back.) Tom is over there, bending Jane's ear about something. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bend your ear for an hour.

See also: bend, ear

bend someone's ear

Talk about a matter at tedious length; monopolize someone's attention. For example, Aunt Mary is always bending his ear about her financial problems. This term may have come from the much older to bend one's ear to someone, meaning "to listen to someone," although the current phrase implies a less than willing audience. [Colloquial; c. 1940]

See also: bend, ear

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

bend someone's ear

INFORMAL

If someone bends your ear, they keep talking to you about something, often about a problem they have or something they want you to do. I had Jo bending my ear for over an hour with all her problems. He was fed up with people bending his ear about staying on at school.

See also: bend, ear

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

bend someone's ear

talk to someone, especially with great eagerness or in order to ask a favour. informal

See also: bend, ear

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

bend somebody’s ˈear (about something)

(informal) talk to somebody a lot about something, especially about a problem that you have: Max has been bending my ear all night about his job.

See also: bend, ear

bend (someone's) ear

Slang

To talk to at length, usually excessively.

See also: bend, ear

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

bend someone's ear, to

To subject someone to a barrage of words. This somewhat slangy twentieth-century cliché comes from an older one, to bend one’s ear to someone, meaning to listen or pay attention to someone. This usage dates from the late sixteenth century and frequently appears in poetry (for example, John Milton, “Thine ears with favor bend,” 1648). Sometimes incline serves for bend, as in the Book of Common Prayer and in a well-known Protestant prayer response (“Hear our prayer, O Lord, incline thine ear to us,” by George Whelpton, 1897).