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internal ear

American  

noun

  1. the inner portion of the ear, involved in hearing and balance, consisting of a bony labyrinth that is composed of a vestibule, semicircular canals, and a cochlea and that encloses a membranous labyrinth.


internal ear British  

noun

  1. Also called: inner ear.   labyrinth.  the part of the ear that consists of the cochlea, vestibule, and semicircular canals

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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This design feature is inspired by the multiple synaptic connections between hair cells in the internal ear and neurons, providing a backup should one pathway fail.

From Science Daily • Jan. 13, 2024

The reader has an internal ear: so must the writer.

From The Guardian • Oct. 7, 2017

Ama was a wine vessel used in the early Christian Church, also a medical term for "an enlargement of the semicircular canal of the internal ear."

From Time Magazine Archive

Often occurs secondarily to caries of internal ear, and purulent discharge the result of scarlet fever, measles, etc., in childhood.

From Neuralgia and the Diseases that Resemble it by Anstie, Francis E.

Such organs as the eye and the internal ear are quite out of reach of any explanation by natural selection.

From The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 by Walker, Aaron