What does it mean when your ears ring?
In folk custom, ringing in the ear means somebody is talking about you. The belief is old enough that the Roman writer Pliny the Elder recorded it in the first century. A ringing that keeps happening is a health question, not an omen.
Last reviewed October 20, 2026
What each tradition says
Continental Europe, recorded from the medieval period onward
European folk custom
The belief that a ringing ear means someone elsewhere is speaking of you is found across Europe and was written down by Pliny the Elder, a Roman naturalist, in the first century. In many versions the ear tells the tone: the right ear for praise and the left for blame, though that varies by region.
The United States, mostly nineteenth and twentieth century
American folk custom
In American custom the saying survived in a lighter form, usually said as a joke when someone's ears ring, with the added game of naming who might be talking and asking a friend to pick a number. Like most such sayings, it is recent and regional.
Found everywhere, in every era, with no single point of origin
Folk omen custom
Ringing, twitching and itching are among the body signs people have read as news arriving from somewhere else. They are learned from family and change from household to household, and no one is in charge of them.
How to weigh it
A brief ringing that fades is very common and usually harmless. If it is constant, comes with hearing loss, or follows loud noise, it is called tinnitus and a doctor can look at it. That is the practical answer. The folk reading is a pleasant story that belongs next to it and not in place of it.