Origin of Eavesdropping

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Karen from Madison, Wisconsin.

Hi, Karen, how are you?

Hi, Karen.

Pretty good.

What’s up?

Well, I looked up a word, an expression, and it sounds kind of, maybe plausible, but awfully precarious.

The way the expression developed, the expression is eavesdropping.

And the explanation given on one site is that eaves were big enough to climb up on and find out what was going on inside.

It seems like an awfully precarious thing.

I can imagine a lot of people coming to unfortunate circumstances as a result of their curiosity.

Yeah.

Yeah, they’re making some assumptions about architecture, aren’t they?

Yes, they are.

Yeah, so the site, you said that people actually climbed up on the eaves of the house, and that’s the slanted part of the roof, right?

Right, right. And I don’t know if I buy that or not.

Don’t buy, don’t buy.

No, no, no. Sell, sell.

Yes, your suspicions are well placed. It doesn’t refer to climbing up on a roof, but it refers to that space underneath the roof.

You know how a roof projects out over the house?

Sure.

And that’s the Eve, right?

Mm—

And the word Eve, E-A-V-E, comes from probably the same family of words as over.

So it’s the part that projects over the edge of the house.

And within that space, Karen, there’s a place where you can stand.

On the ground, though, mind you, right?

Right, right, on the ground, under the eave.

And the progression was that originally the word eavesdrop or eavesdrip meant the dripping of water off of the eave.

And then it meant that area down under where the water dripped.

And then it came to refer to standing there in that space to, as you said, listen to somebody.

Because the key here is to remember that this word dates to a period when multi-story buildings were not common.

Right.

So the eave wasn’t 20 or 30 feet up above your head.

You maybe even could jump up and hit it with your hand.

And so when you’re standing under the eave, your back is against the house,

And anyone in the house can’t see you out the door or out the window unless they step out of the house.

So you could be right by a window, you could be right by a door listening to what’s going on inside.

-huh.

So that’s a lot easier to picture, isn’t it, Karen?

Yep, yep.

Yeah.

No, eavesdropping does not come from spies and ninjas falling from the fast roofs of old cottages or anything like that.

Wonderful images.

Yeah, it’s a great picture.

But it’s pretty simple.

The simple explanation is the right one here.

All right.

Does that help?

Sure.

All right.

Glad to hear it.

Bye-bye.

Thank you, Karen.

Thanks. Bye-bye.

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