Eavesdrop
The word eavesdrop has a poetically beautiful
etymology.
It comes from Middle English, born of the Old English
word, yfesdrype.
Eaves are, of course, those bits of a
house’s roof that stick out from the house.
Historically, the eavesdrip was the line on the ground
where the rain or morning dew dripped from the eaves.
In time, this became a legal term, used to determine – in part – how close one
house could be built to the next house. In time, the droplets falling from the
eaves
acquired the moniker eavesdrops. Soon after that, nosey
people who stood close enough to their neighbors’ homes to hear what was going
on inside were called eavesdroppers, since standing so
close put them in the eavesdrip. Soon, the British legal
system happily applied the term eavesdropper to nosey listeners.
Is that poetry, or what?
Good followers, what have you to say about this
transformation, or about your experiences being eavesdropped upon, or possibly
eavesdropping? Writers out there, I would submit that we find more eavesdroppers
in fiction than in real life – true or unfounded hogwash?
My thanks go out to this week’s sources, Etymoniline.com, RandomHouse.com, The Word Detective,
& The
OED.