earworm

ear +‎ worm, as a calque of German Ohrwurm (“earworm”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɪə(ɹ).wɜː(ɹ)m/

earworm (plural earworms)

1. A tune that is stuck in one's head, especially as unwanted or repetitive.
   • 2005, Kim Cooper, David Smay, editor, Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed‎, Routledge, →ISBN, Klymaxx - Meeting in the Ladies Room, page 132:

     The chorus spawned an earworm so potent that women still mutter it as they exit for a bathroom break twenty years later.

   • 2005, Brain Stableford, Kiss the Goat‎, Wildside Press, →ISBN, Chapter Two, pages 15-16:

     “Yeah, well,” he said, weakly. “Sometimes tunes do that.” […] ¶ “I don't mean that I heard it once before and caught an earworm.”

   • 2009, Steve Goodman, “1971: The Earworm”, in Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear‎, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 147:

     A commonly cited species within memetics, the earworm is the catchy tune that you cannot get out of your head, the vocal refrain, the infectious rhythm or the addictive riff

• corn earworm