earlid

plural earlids

1. An imaginary fold of skin that would allow the ear to be closed as the eye can be.

   But when one neighbor’s leaf blower sets off another neighbor’s car alarm, hey, where are my earlids?

   2009 June 23, Natalie Angier, “When an Ear Witness Decides the Case”, in New York Times

   2 more examples

   But wouldn't earlids be useful too? Possibly. But not so useful that without them earlid-less animals would die out[…]

   2008, Glenn Murphy, How Loud Can You Burp?, page 22

   There is no such thing as an earlid. The ear is always open, always supplementing its primary materiality, always multiplying the singularity of perception into the plurality of experience.

   2009, Seth Kim-Cohen, In the blink of an ear: toward a non-cochlear sonic art, page xx