earworm

noun

1. A tune that keeps replaying in one's head or that one keeps thinking about, especially if unwanted.

   “The chorus [of "Meeting in the Ladies Room" by Klymaxx] spawned an earworm so potent that women still mutter it as they exit for a bathroom break twenty years later.”

   “"It's been haunting me," she said. / "Yeah, well," he said, weakly. "Sometimes tunes do that." [...] "I don't mean that I heard it once before and caught an earworm. [...]"”

   “My Mom has a special gift—or curse—depending on how you look at it. She suffers from ear worms. That's when you have songs runnin' around in your head and can't shut them off. All day long, at the ranch, Mom would go about her work, singin' and whistlin'.”

   “Earworms are the virological vectors onto which sonic branding latches. [...] A commonly cited species within memetics, the earworm is the catchy tune that you cannot get out of your head, the vocal refrain, the infectious rhythm or the addictive riff.”

   “She does not regard her ear-worms as anything other than an incidental irritant in her life. Unlike Jane, I have an ear-worm all the time – literally all the time – from the moment I wake up to the moment I zonk out; [...]”

2. (abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis)Ellipsis of corn earworm (“larva of the moths Helicoverpa zea (syn. Heliothis zea) and Helicoverpa armigera, which are agricultural pests”).

   “I had planned in mind to tell you [...] how I protected, that is, guaranteed, Evergreen sweet corn against the bud worm and the ear worm; [...]”

   “The number of bollworms or ear worms increases greatly as the season advances. This indicates a need for hastening the maturity of all crops affected.”

   “Encouraging progress is being made, however, in the search for and utilization of earworm-resistant strains of both field and sweet corn. We mentioned the protection of ears from earworms, weevils, and grain moths by tight husks that extend beyond the tip of the ear.”

   “The fall armyworm and the corn earworm attack sweet corn as earworms. [...] Although they may sometimes eat through the husk to attack the side of the ear, most earworms feed on the silks and enter through the silk channel to attack the tip of the ear. The earworm population may be almost completely composed of corn earworms or of fall armyworms, or of a mixture of the two species.”

   “A single earworm may seriously damage or destroy the bud of a cole crop plant, causing the plant to be disfigured or to produce several secondary buds. Earworms may disfigure the heads of cabbage plants by their feeding and tunneling [...].”

3. (archaic)An earwig (“insect of the order Dermaptera”).

   “Earwig, [...] The ear-worm or grub, a well-known insect, with large transparent wings, which eats fruit and flower-leaves, and has been erroneously supposed to creep into the human brain through the ear; [...]”

   “Foreign Bodies in the Ear. [...] The ear-worm (forficula auricula), so much dreaded by people, occasions no special danger, but behaves in the ear in as harmless a manner as all other living animalcula of that calibre.”