earworm — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A tune that keeps replaying in one's head or that one keeps thinking about, especially if unwanted.

   Synonyms

   brainworm

   Examples

   More examples (5)

   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.

2. An earwig; an insect of the order Dermaptera.

   Usage

   • Archaic

   Examples

   More examples (2)

   Earwig, [...] The ear-worm or grub, a well-known insect, with large transparent wings, which eats fruit and flower-leaves, and has been erroneously supposed to creep into the human brain through the ear; [...]

   Foreign Bodies in the Ear. [...] The ear-worm (forficula auricula), so much dreaded by people, occasions no special danger, but behaves in the ear in as harmless a manner as all other living animalcula of that calibre.