set by the ears | Idiomator

Meaning: (transitive,idiomatic)To make (a person or persons)argue; to setquarrelling.1623,John Chamberlain,The Works of Francis Bacon, volume14, Cambridge University Press, published2011,→ISBN, page430:[The patrimony of the King's children] was not to be recovered but by […] a bloody and uncertain war, andsettingall Christendom togetherby the ears.1712,John Arbuthnot, “The History of John Bull”, in George A. Aitken,The Life and Works of John Arbuthnot, Clarendon Press (1892), page225:Then she used to carry tales and stories from one to another, till she hadsetthe whole neighbourhood togetherby the ears; […]1862, “The Simonides Controversy”, in K. Simonides,The Periplus of Hannon, Trübner & Co. (1864), page42:never did any man possess in so extraordinary a degree the faculty ofsettingpeopleby the ears, of provoking dissension, and of creating strife.1913,Fairfax Cartwright, in T. G. Otte,July Crisis, Cambridge University Press (2014),→ISBN, page140:Servia will some daysetEuropeby the earsand bring about a universal war on the Continent, […]1971,Keith Thomas,Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published2012, page155:Even the best-intentioned minister couldseta parishby the ears, so a single-minded insistence on the elimination of a vice could make him a figure of terror rather than an approachable counsellor […].

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