Not quite an ear to the ground? (5)
I believe the answer is:
earth
'ground?' is the definition.
(I know that ground can be written as earth)
'not quite an ear to the' is the wordplay.
'not quite' means to remove the last letter (most but not all of the word).
'ear'+'the'='earthe'
'earthe' with its final letter removed is 'EARTH'.
(Other definitions for earth that I've seen before include "Third planet from the Sun" , "wire" , "Human world" , "Terra firma" , "Soil; fox's lair" .)