Meaning & use
ear trumpet
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountableold-fashioned
A small curved tube that a hard-of-hearing person held to the ear to make sounds louder.
Grammar: Countable: use a/a before it, and ear trumpets in the plural.
Patterns
- hold an ear trumpet to your ear
- speak into an ear trumpet
- use an ear trumpet
In the old photograph, my great-grandfather is holding an ear trumpet to his ear.
Before hearing aids existed, people with hearing loss often carried an ear trumpet.
The museum has a collection of ear trumpets made of brass and silver.
nouncountablefigurativeold-fashioned
This kind of device considered as a symbol of the days before modern hearing technology.
Grammar: Used in history writing and in figurative remarks about outdated technology.
Patterns
- a thing of the ear-trumpet era
- sound like an ear trumpet
Calling this old phone system an ear trumpet would be unfair, but it is certainly ancient.
In the ear-trumpet era, conversation depended on how close you sat to the speaker.
Word forms
| plural | ear trumpets |
|---|
Common combinations
- hold an ear trumpet to your ear
- She held an ear trumpet to her ear to catch what the doctor said.
- a brass ear trumpet
- A brass ear trumpet hung on the wall as a decoration.
- the invention of the ear trumpet
- The invention of the ear trumpet helped many people join family conversations.
- carry an ear trumpet
- He always carried an ear trumpet in his coat pocket.
Synonyms and how they differ
- hearing aid
- This is the modern electronic device; an ear trumpet is the old, non-electric tube, so use hearing aid for anything current.
- ear horn
- A less common name for the same old device, mostly found in historical writing.
Word family
Commonly confused: ear trumpet or earphone? ear trumpet or megaphone?
ear trumpet vs earphone
An earphone is a modern device that carries sound to your ear from a phone or player; an ear trumpet makes surrounding sound louder for the listener.
ear trumpet vs megaphone
A megaphone makes your voice louder for other people; an ear trumpet helps one person hear other people.
Practice
Which sentence uses "ear trumpet" correctly?
Choose one answer.
An ear trumpet is held to the ear by the listener to make sound louder, so option 2 fits. Option 0 confuses it with a megaphone, which you speak into. Option 1 is correct English but describes a megaphone, not an ear trumpet. Option 3 uses a modern device word, not the old tube.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “ear trumpet”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.