cloth-ears

cloth-ears (plural cloth-ears)

1. (UK, dated, informal, derogatory) A person who cannot hear clearly or who fails to pay attention to what is said. Its origin is in the wool and cotton mills of Northern England where the noise of the machinery and build-up of cotton dust made it difficult to hear people speaking. The earliest example in print is

"I wish you'd listen. Have you got cloth ears?" from 'Carnival', a novel by Compton Mackenzie (1912).

• cloth-eared

• chelators, chlorates, clathrose, searcloth, trochleas