bend (one's) ear

To talk to one for a long time, usually causing them to become bored or annoyed. Do you guys need any help in the kitchen? Uncle Stu has been bending my ear about the stock market for the past hour! I'm sorry, I've been bending your ear about the goings-on at City Hall for a while now. Leave it to Grandpa to bend our ear about the weather for almost the entire dinner.

Fig. to talk to someone, perhaps annoyingly. (As if talking so much that the other person's ear is moved back.) Tom is over there, bending Jane's ear about something. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bend your ear for an hour.

Talk about a matter at tedious length; monopolize someone's attention. For example, Aunt Mary is always bending his ear about her financial problems. This term may have come from the much older to bend one's ear to someone, meaning "to listen to someone," although the current phrase implies a less than willing audience. [Colloquial; c. 1940]

If someone bends your ear, they keep talking to you about something, often about a problem they have or something they want you to do. I had Jo bending my ear for over an hour with all her problems. He was fed up with people bending his ear about staying on at school.

To talk to at length, usually excessively.

To subject someone to a barrage of words. This somewhat slangy twentieth-century cliché comes from an older one, to bend one’s ear to someone, meaning to listen or pay attention to someone. This usage dates from the late sixteenth century and frequently appears in poetry (for example, John Milton, “Thine ears with favor bend,” 1648). Sometimes incline serves for bend, as in the Book of Common Prayer and in a well-known Protestant prayer response (“Hear our prayer, O Lord, incline thine ear to us,” by George Whelpton, 1897).