go in one ear and out the other
English
Alternative forms
- go in at one ear and at out the other
Pronunciation
Audio (AU) (file)
Verb
go in one ear and out the other (third-person singular simple present goes in one ear and out the other, present participle going in one ear and out the other, simple past went in one ear and out the other, past participle gone in one ear and out the other)
- (idiomatic) To be heard but not attended to, when a person fails to pay attention.
- He told me who he saw, but it went in one ear and out the other.
Translations
to be heard but not attended to
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See also
- fall on deaf ears
- preach to deaf ears
Further reading
- “go in one ear and out the other” in the Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- “go in one ear and out the other”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.