eavesdropping

noun

eaves·​drop·​ping ˈēvz-ˌdrä-piŋ 

: the act of secretly listening to something private

Highly sophisticated means of electronic eavesdropping were developed and put into use, largely uncontrolled by the law.

—Wayne R. LaFave & Jerold H. Israel

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

—Rick Riordan

Examples of eavesdropping in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Such opportunistic eavesdropping is challenging, because Starlink is consistently optimizing for its primary satellite Internet service by turning beams on and off, or sometimes switching beams as the fast-moving satellites talk to many different users, Kassas explained. —Andrew Cunningham, ArsTechnica, 11 May 2026

Greylord was a watershed in its use of eavesdropping devices and a mole to obtain evidence instead of relying on wrongdoers to become government informants. —Kori Rumore, Chicago Tribune, 4 May 2026

Canvasser was arrested Wednesday and charged with unlawful eavesdropping or surveillance, according to police records. —Sasha Pezenik, ABC News, 10 Apr. 2026

And that communication can be in the open, on a public channel susceptible to eavesdropping. —Joseph Howlett, Scientific American, 31 Mar. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1641, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for eavesdropping

• intercropping
• overtopping
• telescoping
• chopping
• copping
• cropping
• dropping
• flopping
• hopping
• lopping
• mopping
• popping