An earful is an informal blast of angry complaint. Get an earful, give him an earful, quite an earful.
The word is named from the receiving side rather than the speaker's, which is what makes it funny: an earful is what you get, not what you deliver, though give somebody an earful works too. It is always informal and never written in a complaint.
1nounearfulAn informal blast of angry complaint aimed at somebody who has to stand and take it, named from the receiving side rather than the speaker's.
“I got an earful from my mum for coming home at three in the morning.”
earful is a scolding.
Ear plus -ful, on the pattern of handful and mouthful.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂ew-
Middle English
ere
English
ear
English, today
earful
Built from
From ear + -ful. ear comes from Middle English ere. From Middle English eare, eere, ere, eyr, ire, yere, ȝhere, from Old English ēare (“ear”), from Proto-West Germanic auʀā, from the voiced Verner alternant of Proto-Germanic ausô (“ear”), from Proto-Indo-European h₂ṓws (“ear”), from h₂ew- (“to perceive”). 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA