English Dictionary

EAVESDROP (eavesdropped, eavesdropping)

Pronunciation (US): Play  (GB): Play

IPA (US): 

Irregular inflected forms: eavesdropped  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation, eavesdropping  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation

 Dictionary entry overview: What does eavesdrop mean? 

EAVESDROP (verb)
  The verb EAVESDROP has 1 sense:

1. listen without the speaker's knowledgeplay

  Familiarity information: EAVESDROP used as a verb is very rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


EAVESDROP (verb)

 Conjugation: 
Present simple: I / you / we / they eavesdrop  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation ... he / she / it eavesdrops  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation
Past simple: eavesdropped  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation
Past participle: eavesdropped  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation
-ing form: eavesdropping  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation


Sense 1

Meaning:

Listen without the speaker's knowledge

Classified under:

Verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling

Synonyms:

eavesdrop; listen in

Context example:

the jealous man was eavesdropping on his wife's conversations

Hypernyms (to "eavesdrop" is one way to...):

listen (hear with intention)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "eavesdrop"):

bug; intercept; tap; wiretap (tap a telephone or telegraph wire to get information)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

eavesdropper (a secret listener to private conversations)


 Context examples 


Perhaps, since the matters which we have to discuss will affect you personally in a very intimate fashion, it is as well that we should talk where there can be no eavesdropping.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For what may be the first time, NOAA and partner scientists eavesdropped on the deepest part of the world’s ocean and instead of finding a sea of silence, discovered a cacophony of sounds both natural and caused by humans.

(Seven miles deep, the ocean is still a noisy place, NOAA)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." (English proverb)

"Do not wrong or hate your neighbor for it is not he that you wrong but yourself." (Native American proverb, Pima)

"Dawn does not come twice to awaken a man." (Arabic proverb)

"He who seeks, finds." (Corsican proverb)



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