Meaning
Extremely pleasing or welcome to hear, said especially of good news or of words you have long wanted someone to say. The thing heard need not be musical at all; the phrase compares any welcome sound or statement to a beautiful performance. Warm and positive; casual register, suitable for speech and most informal writing. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The underlying image, that welcome words are a kind of music, is old in English. Philip Sidney's Arcadia (written around 1580, published 1590) speaks of fame yielding so sweet a music to the ears, Shakespeare has 'neuer words were musicke to thine eare' in The Comedy of Errors (c. 1594), and Izaak Walton used the comparison in The Compleat Angler (1653). The fixed modern formula, typically announced after good news, became a common set phrase in the nineteenth century, with examples such as James Fenimore Cooper's 'made music to her ears' (1838) and Mark Twain's 'was music to his ears' (1906). A nineteenth-century origin date therefore understates the record: the comparison is documented from the 1590s, while its currency as a ready-made idiom is a Victorian and later development.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- like music to my ears
- music to someone's ears
- music to the ears
- sweet music to my ears
- that's music to my ears
Usage Examples
- When the airline texted that our flight had been rebooked in first class, it was music to my ears.
- The referee's final whistle was music to the ears of the home supporters.
- Hearing her advisor say the dissertation needed only minor revisions was pure music to her ears.