An earring is a piece of jewellery that is worn on the ear. They are worn by both sexes, although until recently in western cultures, they were more typically worn by women.



Earrings can be made of different materials and have diamonds or any other gemstone.

Ear piercing is one of the oldest known forms of body modification, with artistic and written references from cultures around the world dating back to early history. One of the early signs of earrings worn by males are from the walls of Perspolis in ancient Persia, the carved images of the soldiers from various parts of the Persian Empire which are displayed on some of the surviving walls of the palace showing the soldiers wearing an ear ring.

Pierced ears were popular in the United States through the early 1920s, then fell into disfavor among women due to the rising popularity of clip-on earrings. However, there continued to be a small male following, particularly among sailors, where a pierced earlobe often meant that the wearer had sailed around the world or had crossed the equator. There was also a long-held belief that puncturing the earlobe was beneficial to increasing the acuity of eyesight or of hearing.

Ear piercing continued to be practiced by Western women of various cultures, e.g., Hispanic, but was less common in Anglo-based cultures until the 1960s. At that time, the practice re-emerged, but since there did not exist a commercial market, most ear piercing were done at home. Teenage girls were known to hold ear piercing parties, where they performed the procedure on one another. Such an event is depicted in the 1978 motion picture Grease.

In the latter part of the 20th century, some Americans and Europeans adopted the convention that when a man pierced just one of his ears, it symbolised his being gay. In some circles, it was the left ear, while in others, the right. Men with bilateral ear piercing were relatively rare, and were sometimes interpreted as effeminate or bisexual. However, the convention tended to vary from one region to the next, and was not always followed.