Outrageously Funny Word Dictionary :: Round eared

👉 Okay, let’s tackle that wonderfully delightfully odd little mouthful of a word – "Round-eared." Now, before I delve into its glorious peculiarity, let me preface things by saying, honestly, nobody actually
uses
the full phrase anymore. Unless they're trying to sound terribly affected and perhaps just a touch…eccentric. Nineteenth-century gentlemen apparently adored describing people with round ears, which frankly, is a bit of a rabbit hole of Victorian waistcoat anxieties.

Essentially, "Round-eared," when it was actually in vogue (circa 1850s until roughly the early 20th), referred to someone who simply possessed a noticeably rounded or bulging pair of ears. You know, not pointy, not floppy, just…round. Like a well-worn plum. Anthropometrically speaking, you wouldn't necessarily find it a medically significant characteristic unless there was some underlying condition (which then made the roundness even rounder —quite the feedback loop!). The original phrasing, frankly, smacked of an aristocratic attempt to notice and then describe what they perceived as a charming quirk. You know, like complimenting your acquaintance's exceptionally bushy eyebrows, except instead of brows, it was the ears. There are some rather flowery, almost theatrical, old gentleman’s descriptions of the effect – picturing them sitting with a slight flush, delicately pointing to the ears and murmuring something along the lines of, "Quite remarkable, you observe!