Eavesdropping's the act of surreptitiously listening to a private conversation. This's commonly thought to be unethical and there's an old adage that eavesdroppers seldom hear anything good of themselves. History Ancient Anglo-Saxon law punished eavesdroppers, who skulked in the eavesdrip of another's home, with a fine; the eavesdrip was also sometimes called the eavesdrop. Eavesdrop also means a small low visibility hole near the entrance to a building (generally under the eaves) which would… (More on Eavesdropping)