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The Learning Kingdom's Cool Word of the Day for March 12, 1999
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eavesdrop [v. EEVZ-drop]
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If you eavesdrop, then you secretly listen in on a conversation, and
you are an eavesdropper. "Quietly, she picked up the telephone
extension and eavesdropped on Tom and Sue."
This is an old word from Anglo-Saxon times, before there were such
things as rain gutters and down spouts. Roofs were designed with a
wide overhanging edge, the eaves, which carried rainwater away from
the building's foundation. The eavesdrip (later, the eavesdrop) was
the sheltered area under the eaves, where one could stand and listen
clandestinely to conversations within the house.
The root of eaves was Old English yfes, from the ancient upo-. That
root branched into a varied family of words, including up, uproar,
open, above, often, supple, valet, vassal, and opal.
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