flea in one's ear

plural fleas in one's ear

1. idiomaticA stinging rebuke or rebuff.

   If he bothers me again, I'll send him home with a flea in his ear.

   4 more examples

   Thus spoke the pert hussy and view'd me all round With an eye of disdain and thrice spit on the ground; Look'd proud of her charms, with an insolent sneer, And sent me away with a flea in my ear.

   1810, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper

   "I came away with two fleas in each ear," Mark recalled cheerfully, ten years later.

   1979, Dervla Murphy, Wheels Within Wheels

   As for him getting a flea in his ear, when I had finished with him he did not have an ear left into which a flea could have been deposited.

   2010, Don Oslear, Wisden's The Laws Of Cricket, →ISBN

   For when she got home her Instructress severe / Dismissed her to bed with a Flea in her Ear.

   2012, Hannah Jane Locker-Lampson, A Selection From the Works of Frederick Locker, →ISBN