EARRING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does earring mean? 

• EARRING (noun)
  The noun EARRING has 1 sense:

1. jewelry to ornament the ear; usually clipped to the earlobe or fastened through a hole in the lobe

  Familiarity information: EARRING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EARRING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Jewelry to ornament the ear; usually clipped to the earlobe or fastened through a hole in the lobe

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("earring" is a kind of...):

jewellery; jewelry (an adornment (as a bracelet or ring or necklace) made of precious metals and set with gems (or imitation gems))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "earring"):

drop earring; eardrop; pendant earring (an earring with a pendant ornament)

 Context examples 

One of these ears is a woman’s, small, finely formed, and pierced for an earring.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced for earrings?”

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At last, however, we got alongside, and were met and saluted as we stepped aboard by the mate, Mr. Arrow, a brown old sailor with earrings in his ears and a squint.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

A set of silver filagree was added, bracelets, necklace, brooch, and even earrings, for Hortense tied them on with a bit of pink silk which did not show.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

From the bosom of his robe he then produced a casket, opened it and showed magnificent bracelets and earrings; she acted astonishment and admiration; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her feet; incredulity and delight were expressed by her looks and gestures; the stranger fastened the bracelets on her arms and the rings in her ears.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The most, however, were young and dandy archers, with fresh English faces, their beards combed out, their hair curling from under their close steel hufkens, with gold or jewelled earrings gleaming in their ears, while their gold-spangled baldrics, their silken belts, and the chains which many of them wore round their thick brown necks, all spoke of the brave times which they had had as free companions.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Among them I remember a double set of pigs' trotters, a huge pin-cushion, half a bushel or so of apples, a pair of jet earrings, some Spanish onions, a box of dominoes, a canary bird and cage, and a leg of pickled pork.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I stared hard myself at her flat, grizzled hair, her trim cap, her little gilt earrings, her placid features; but I could see nothing which could account for my companion’s evident excitement.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She had small round, hanging gold earrings, and a general air of being fairly well-to-do in a vulgar, comfortable, easy-going way.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He had a line or two rigged up to help him across the widest spaces—Long John's earrings, they were called; and he would hand himself from one place to another, now using the crutch, now trailing it alongside by the lanyard, as quickly as another man could walk.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)