earworm
/ˈɪ(ə)ɹˌwɚm/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.16 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A tune that keeps replaying in one's head or that one keeps thinking about, especially if unwanted.
noun
Ellipsis of corn earworm (“larva of the moths Helicoverpa zea (syn. Heliothis zea) and Helicoverpa armigera, which are agricultural pests”).
Example Sentences
- "The chorus [of "Meeting in the Ladies Room" by Klymaxx] spawned an earworm so potent that women still mutter it as they exit for a bathroom break twenty years later."
- ""It's been haunting me," she said. / "Yeah, well," he said, weakly. "Sometimes tunes do that." [...] "I don't mean that I heard it once before and caught an earworm. [...]""
- "My Mom has a special gift—or curse—depending on how you look at it. She suffers from ear worms. That's when you have songs runnin' around in your head and can't shut them off. All day long, at the ranch, Mom would go about her work, singin' and whistlin'."
- "Earworms are the virological vectors onto which sonic branding latches. [...] A commonly cited species within memetics, the earworm is the catchy tune that you cannot get out of your head, the vocal refrain, the infectious rhythm or the addictive riff."
- "She does not regard her ear-worms as anything other than an incidental irritant in her life. Unlike Jane, I have an ear-worm all the time – literally all the time – from the moment I wake up to the moment I zonk out; [...]"
- "And with the way he's turned our music into my own personal ear worm, I think I'm actually getting this artistry thing he keeps yammering on about."
Etymology
From ear + worm; senses 1 and 3 (“tune that keeps replaying in one’s head”; “earwig”) are a calque of German Ohrwurm (“tune that pops up in one’s memory all the time; earwig”) (from the idea of a creature burrowing into the ear, an erroneous belief where earwigs are concerned), while sense 2 (“moth larva”) refers to the fact that these pests infest, among other things, ears of maize or sweet corn.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈɪ(ə)ɹˌwɚm/
- British English: /ˈɪəwɜːm/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Music.