eanling, eaneling

[Eng. ean, and dim in. suff. -ling.] A lamb just brought forth or dropped, "All the canelings which were streaked and pied Should fall as Jacob's hire." Shakesp.: Merchant of Venice , i. 3. ear (1), *ere, s . [A. S.edre; cogn. with Dut. oor; Icel. eyra ; Sw. ora ; Dan. öre ; M. H. Ger. ore ; Ger. ohr ; Lat. auris ; Goth. auso; Gr.ous.] IMG:content-0696.png:[blocks in formation] serting the hooks by which the projectile is lifted. (b) The canon of a bell, the part by which it is suspended. "There are some ve els, which, if you offer to lift by the belly or bottom, you cannot stir them; but are soon removed if you take them by the ears."-Taylor: Holy Living. (2) The head; the person. "Their warlike force was sore weakened, the city beaten down about their ears , and most of them wounded."Knolles: Historie of the Turkes. (3) The highest part or point of a man; the top. (4) Favorable notice or attention; heed, regard. "Thou hast achieved a part; hast gained the ear Of Britain's senate to thy glorious cause." Cowper: To William Wilberforce, Esq. (5) A disposition to like or dislike what is heard: judgment, opinion, taste. *(6) A window, a door. "My house's ears , I mean my casements." II. Technically: 1. Anatomy: Shakesp.: Merchant of Venice , ii. 5. (1) Human Anat .: The organ of hearing is divided into three parts, the external ear, the middle or tympanum, and the internal or labyrinth. The external consists of the pinna or funnel, which collects the vibrations of the air producing sound, and the meatus or tube which conveys the vibrations to the tympanum; in its lining-membrane are the ceruminous glands, which secrete the wax of the ear. The middle ear or tympanum is an irregular bony cavity within the petrous bone, having behind it the mastoid cells; it contains three small bones, the malleus or hammer, the incus or anvil, and the stapes or stirrup, covered by the membrana tympani extending from the meatus in three layers, an external, epidermal; middle, fibrous and muscular; internal, mucous. The ligaments are three in number, the muscles four, and the foramina or openings ten, five large and five small. The labyrinth or internal ear is very complex, and consists of a membranous and o eous part, the latter showing a series of cavities tunneled through the petrous bone, and divided into vestibule, semicircular canals, and cochlea, the first lying nearest the tympanum, the others beneath, the last about one and a half inches in length, making two and a half spiral turns round the modiolus or central axis, and divided into two pa ages by a thin porous bony plate: the zonula o ea lamine spiral is. The auditory nerve divides at the bottom of the meatus auditor i us intern us into two, the vestibular and the cochlear; the arteries arise chiefly from the auditory branch of the superior cerebellar artery. (2) Comp . Anat .: The simplest form of ear, as in some crustacea and fishes, is simply a cavity in the solid part of the head filled with liquid and lined by a membrane on which the auditory nerve is distributed; these live in water, but those crustacea chiefly living in air, and most fishes, have the vestibule open on its external side, covered in by a membrane. In this simple form, the force of the vibrations is increased by minute stony concretions, otolithes, suspended in the fluid of the cavity. In all vertebrated animals above the inferior reptiles, we have the tympanum or drum with its membrane and chain of bones in adition to the internal ear, and in the mammal i a, we have in addition the external ear, and also prolonged from the vestibule or first portion of the internal ear, we have the semicircular canals, and the cochlea. In birds the cochlea is nearly straight instead of spiral, though like that of man it is divided by a membranous partition, the organ which enables us to judge of the pitch of sounds. The cochlea is quite rudimentary in reptiles, and in fishes it does not exist at all. IMG:content-0697.png:[blocks in formation] marine; gō, pot, 4. Music : earache (1) In the metallic mouth-pipe of an organ. One of the pair of soft metal plates at each end of the slit or mouth of the pipe, which may be bent more or le over the opening to qualify the tone. (2) A nice or delicate perception of the differences of sounds, or of consonances and di onances, time and rhythm. "She has a delicate ear , and her voice is music."- Rich ards on. 5. Print .: A projection on the edge of the frisket; or one on the edge of the composing-rule. (1) Artificial ear: An auricle having the shape of the natural ear, and worn as an ear-trumpet, to collect the waves of sound and conduct them by a tube to the meatus auditor i us. Usually made of gutta-perch a colored to resemble nature, and attached by clasps to the natural ear. (AURICLE.) (2) Up to the ears : Completely, very greatly or deeply. "A cavalier was up to the ears in love with a very fine lady."-L' Estrange. (3) Over ears , or over head and ears : Completely, so as to be overwhelmed; as, He is over head and ears in debt. (4) All ear : All attention, very attentive. "I was all ear, And took in strains that might create a soul Under the ribs of death." -Milton : Comus , 560-62. (5) To be by the ears , to fall (or go ) together by the ears: To be at loggerheads, to disagree, to fall out, to quarrel, to scuffle. "Were half to half the world by the ears, and he Upon my party, I'd revolt." Shakesp.: Coriolanus, 1. 1. (6) To set by the ears: To raise or cause strife between. "She used to carry tales from one another, till she had set the neighborhood together by the ears."- Arbuthnot : Hist. of John Bull. (7) At first ear : At first hearing; immediately. "A believing at first ear what is delivered by others." -Browne: Vulgar Errors, bk. i., ch. v. ear-ache, s. [EARACHE.]