Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also bite someone’s lug) to cadge, to beg.

1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 2 Aug. 14/3: How much of the estate’s ear has been chewed off by the lawyers Heaven only knows. Jarndyce v. Jarndyce was a frisky affair compared with Underwood v. Underwood.
1893–4		H. Lawson ‘Stiffner and Jim’ in Roderick (1972) 124: We’ll have to sharpen our teeth, that’s all, and chew somebody’s lug.
1899		Morn. Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 25 Sept. 3/4: He will [...] ‘touch’ the cook in the morning for a supply of rations; and perhaps successfully ‘chew his ear’ for a bit of tobacco.
1900		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 3 Oct. 1/1: It’s odds on they will want to bite your lug for a caser.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Dec. 34/3: ‘Look here, Dook, I can’t afford to have my customers’ ears chewed by “bummers” like you. So git, and don’t come again.’ It was his coarse way of referring to a few loans I had solicited from my friends.
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Dec. 38/2: Shure we wuz broke, an’ the pubs wudn’t shtick us up another dhrink, an’ we cudn’t bite the lug av a single sowl.
1909		Sun. Times (Perth) 26 Dec. 1s/1: They are on the trail of the silvery shiickerer [...] and the latter is having his ear severely and continually chewed.

2. to talk intensely.

1885		Chicago Trib. 6 Sept. 8/1: In the vernacular of the trade [he] proceeds to ‘chaw the ear’ of his seat mate. This ‘chawing the ear’ is not, as one would suppose, an act of mayhem, though oftentimes it would be better for the victim if it were, but merely consists in a zealous attempt to make a sale.
1900–01		H. Lawson ‘A Bush Publican’s Lament’ in Roderick (1972) 467: He hangs over the bar an’ chews me lug [...] an’ breaks off inter a sort o’ low shriek.
1908		N.Z. Truth 22 Feb. 6/1: Boss Scully chewed his noble lug.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Oct. 18/4: I crossed Hyde Park and passed through Woolloomooloo. [...] Certainly, people have remarked upon it as ‘daring’ and ‘foolhardy,’ and have told me that for ‘no consideration’ would they be so mad or reckless; and I reckon some of the same kind of people have been chewing the Cold-tea apostle’s ear.
1959		(con. 1940s) ‘David Forrest’ Last Blue Sea 195: ‘Let me know when you get back,’ said the padre. ‘We’ll chew the ear a bit.’.
1968		S. Gore Holy Smoke 63: It’s all very well Caesar chewin’ your lug about balancing the Budget and that.
1976		E. Thompson Caldo Largo (1980) 82: She chewed my ear before we got on the bed about how unfairly she was being treated.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 87: Many Lingo terms refer to, involve, or name parts of the human body [...] Ears may be bent, chewed, or we may be earbashed.

3. (also chaw someone’s ear-flaps off, chew someone’s ear off, …nose off) to nag, to talk tediously at someone.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Jan. 11/2: [A]fter pitching the coachman’s hat into a swamp, he started to chaw off his ear-flaps. Being in a nasty mood, however, Coachy objected to the operation, upon which the boss snatched up the reins and flogged the horses into a Mulua gall.
1919		F. Hurst ‘A Petal on the Current’ in Humoresque 96: You two go on and talk together. I’ve chewed Arch’s right ear off already.
1921		(con. WWI) E. Lynch Somme Mud 148: A big jovial man who but a few days ago was chewing our ears.
1934		H. Miller Tropic of Cancer (1963) 171: She pissed the interval away chewing my ear off.
1949		H.C. Bosman Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 77: Every time he got bullied over the job, [he] passed it on to the trades-warders, and they in turn chewed the ears off the discipline screws.
1951		(con. 1880s) S. Longstreet Pedlocks (1971) 77: And if he whips up the horses tell him I’ll chew his nose off, in public.
1966		C. Stead Cotters’ England (1980) 233: I took a week off just to sleep after the last few nights in Lamb Street with you chewing my ear off.
1996		R. Doyle Woman Who Walked Into Doors 1: He changed the bell, after I chewed his ear and nearly wet myself five or six times a day.
2018		G. Gilmore Base Nature [ebook] ‘Davie, we’ve been driving for more than two minutes and you ain’t chewed my ear off about what you’ve been up to’.