Ears burning
Old English lore held that burning ears mean someone is speaking of you, a saying so familiar that Shakespeare's Beatrice cries out about the "fire" in her ears. A warm ear is also a nudge to pass on the kind things you hear about others.
This page only describes folk beliefs. If the sensation keeps coming back or worries you, please see a doctor.
What it may mean
When an ear turns hot for no clear reason, the old explanation comes to mind at once: somebody, somewhere, has your name on their lips. Grose, an English collector of popular sayings, even sorted it by side, with the right ear for praise and the left for criticism. Here is a thought the superstition leaves out. Plenty of what people say about one another behind their backs is ordinary or admiring: a coworker telling the boss you handled something well. Most of it never reaches the person it is about. A burning ear can be your cue to close that gap from the other side, by passing a compliment you heard along to the person who earned it.
Depending on how you saw it
Right ear burning
In Grose's reading, a right ear that burned was a sign you were being spoken of well. If you take that version, the warmth is someone else's compliment arriving early. Who might be saying something good about you, and have you said anything good about them lately?
Left ear burning
The left ear was the unkind side in Grose's list. Even if that were true, you would not know what was said, by whom or why. What could you do with the energy you would otherwise spend guessing?
Cheeks burning instead of ears
Old English writers counted a burning cheek as the same kind of sign, though they disagreed on the side: Melton gave praise to the left cheek, Grose to the right. Either way, a hot face is one that others can see. When your face gives a feeling away, do you let it, or rush to hide it?
Why it happens in nature
Ears warm up and redden easily, because their skin is thin and well supplied with blood. Cold wind, a warm room or a moment of embarrassment can all bring on the feeling.
What folk beliefs say
England
Grose, quoted by Brand, took a burning cheek or ear as a sign that you were being spoken of at that very moment: on the right side to your advantage, on the left to your disadvantage.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (1849), vol. 3, p. 174. View the page
England
Melton's Astrologaster, quoted by Brand, puts it the other way round: when the left cheek burns, somebody is speaking well of you, and when the right cheek burns, ill.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (1849), vol. 3, p. 174. View the page
England
When Beatrice cries "What fire is in mine ears!" in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Brand notes, the scholar Warburton explained it as a proverbial saying of the common people that their ears burn when others are talking of them.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (1849), vol. 3, p. 171. View the page
To reflect on
Whose good work have you heard praised lately, and have you told them?