Meaning
To stay alert and well informed about what is happening or about to happen, especially trends, rumours or shifts in opinion, so that you can act early. It normally takes the form 'keep/have an ear (or one's ear) to the ground', with the person, not the information, as the subject. Neutral to slightly colloquial; often said of politicians, executives, scouts and investors. Regional use: American English origin; now General English.
Origin
American in origin. It comes from the literal frontier practice of pressing an ear to the ground to feel the vibration of distant hoofbeats or moving herds before the sound could be heard through the air; Word Histories dates the figurative phrase to the United States in 1815. The gesture is strongly associated in popular accounts with Native American scouts of the Plains: Grammarist says American Indians taught the technique to cowboys, while noting that the same skill was attributed to Arab and other peoples as well, and the image was later reinforced by twentieth-century Western films. Documentary evidence for the literal practice predates the frontier lore: Grammarist cites 1773-74 Pennsylvania Gazette reports of Red Sea pilots who, 'by laying their Ears to the Ground', claimed to hear signal guns at a very great distance. The Plains Indian link should therefore be presented as a popular and plausible attribution consistent with frontier reporting, not as a single documented source for the idiom.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- have your ear to the ground
- keep an ear to the ground
- keep one's ear close to the ground
- put your ear to the ground
Usage Examples
- Keep your ear to the ground for news of redundancies before you sign a new lease.
- Good scouts keep their ear to the ground, so the club heard about the teenager months before rivals did.
- Our buyer has her ear to the ground in Seoul and flags trends a season early.