1657 Dutch painting of a woman eavesdropping on a conversation between two lovers
8 September 2020
To eavesdrop is to surreptitiously listen in on a conversation to which one is not a party. It’s an old word, dating back to Old English, but the meaning has changed over the centuries. It originally had nothing to do with prying ears.
The original eavesdrop or eavesdrip was the space outside a building, under the eaves, where water would drain. An early appearance is as an endorsement to a grant of land in Kent. The charter was written in 888 C.E., but the endorsement is in a later hand:
& ðer ne gæbyreð an ðam landæ an folces folcryht to lefænne rumæs butan tƿigen fyt to yfæs drypæ.
(And there does not belong to any of these lands a people’s customary right to the leaving of two feet of room outside for the eavesdrip.)
The word eavesdropper, referring to someone who stands in an eavesdrop to listen to what is going inside the building appears in the fifteenth century. A juror’s oath from Colchester, England, probably dating to before 1450 outlines the matters the jury might consider and includes:
Also of al comen chiders and brawlers to the noyauns of ther neyghbours, and evisdroppyrs undyr mennys wyndowes, be night or be day, to bere awey tales or discovere their counsell, to make debate or discension among ther neighbours.
And legal records from the city of Nottingham from 1 October 1487 charges a certain Henry Rowley as being an eavesdropper. The record is in Latin, which is typical for legal papers of the era, but unusually it uses the English word:
ac diversis aliis diebus et vicibus, communiter et usualiter, apud Notingham praedictam, [Henry Rowley] est communis evysdropper et vagator in noctibus, in pertubationem populi Domini Regis et contra pacem suam.
(And on diverse other days and occasions, commonly and usually, at the aforesaid Nottingham, [Henry Rowley] is a common eavesdropper and wanderer in the night, to the perturbation of the people of our lord the king and against his peace.)
The verb is probably a backformation from the noun eavesdropper, as it doesn’t appear in the record until about 150 years later. From George Chapman’s 1606 play Sir Gyles Goosecappe:
We will be bold to evesdroppe; For I know
My friend is as respectiue in his chamber
And by himselfe, of any thing he does
Since then, of course, the word has generalized somewhat and now refers to any surreptitious listening. One no longer has to stand in an eavesdrop in order to eavesdrop.
Sources:
Birch, Walter de Gray. “Grant by Cialulf to Eanmund, of Land in Canterbury, etc.” (Birch 519). Cartularium Saxonicum, vol. 2 of 3. London: Whiting, 1887, 134. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Chapman, George. Sir Gyles Goosecappe. London: John Windet for Edward Blunt, 1606. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Middle English Dictionary, 2018, s.v. eves-dropper, n.
“Oath for the Juries at the Three Law Hundreds. Matters as to Which They Were to Enquire and Present.” The Oath Book; or, Red Parchment Book of Colchester. Benham, W. Gurney, trans. Colchester: Essex County Standard Office, 1907, 4. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. eavesdrip | eavesdrop, n.; eavesdropper, n.; eavesdrop, v.
“Presentments at the Sessions” (1 October 1487). Records of the Borough of Nottingham, vol. 3. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1885, 10–11. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Image source: Nicholas Maes, 1657, Dordrechts Museum, public domain image.