Meaning
Listening eagerly and with full attention, waiting to hear what someone is about to say. Almost always used predicatively, especially in the first person, as when you invite someone to tell their story by announcing that they have your complete, undivided attention. Conversational and friendly; strongly associated with first-person offers to listen. Regional use: General English.
Origin
Merriam-Webster gives 1577 as the first known use of 'all ears', meaning eagerly listening, so the expression is Elizabethan rather than a later American coinage. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms labels it a colloquialism current from the late 1700s, which reflects when the compact announcement 'I'm all ears' became an everyday conversational formula rather than when the words were first combined. The construction follows a common English pattern in which 'all' plus a body part makes an intensive statement of total absorption, seen also in 'all eyes' and 'all thumbs'. Late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century writers used the ear and eye versions freely, and the phrase remains one of the most natural ways in the language of offering to listen.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- all eyes and ears
- be all ears
- I'm all ears
- we're all ears
Usage Examples
- When you're ready to talk about what happened at the meeting, I'm all ears.
- The children were all ears as their grandfather described meeting the astronaut.
- Tell us how you fixed the engine, said the volunteers; we're all ears.