close one's ears

close one's ears (third-person singular simple present closes one's ears, present participle closing one's ears, simple past and past participle closed one's ears)

1. Not to listen.
   • 1865, Thomas Hare, The Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal, page 65:

     to state the case still more strongly, the nation has a right to such practical wisdom as can be elicited only by the free comparison and discussion of opposing and divergent theories and measures; and the legislators who represent a bare majority have no right to close their ears and minds to the most ample and forceful presentation of the views and arguments of the minority.

   • 1910 May, Margaret Preston Lynnbrook, “Doctor Bestor's Atonement”, in The New England Magazine, volume 42, number 3, page 312:

     He closed his ears to applauding voices of the multitude, when those voices were to him the melody of time.

   • 1997, Catherine Davies, Jane Whetnall, Hers Ancient and Modern: Women's Writing in Spain and Brazil, page 13:

     In her writing, Teresa figuratively associates her deafness with her entering the convent: God closed her ears to human voices, cloistering her hearing ('las claustras de mis orejas') and enclosing her in a community of suffering ('el convento de las dolençias').

   • 2009, Kahlil Gibran, Spirits Rebellious, page 13:

     Then I heard a beautiful melody from heaven that revived my wounded heart with its purity, but I closed my ears and said, 'Oh, my soul, the cry of the abyss is thy lot, do not be greedy for heavenly songs.'

• Spanish: taparse las orejas