to listen in
57
5.0
- phrasal verb
- /ˈlɪsən ɪn/
- Informal
:
escuchar a escondidas
- I sat carefully in the dark, listening in on Mama's movement in the apartment.
- students listen in
And I will listen in with an earpiece to what they're doing.
- And I will listen in with an earpiece to what they're doing.
- It's like it's like you would listen in to a phone call with two friends.
- Hello again, Tim Spector here and thanks for listening in for this week's update.
- But they scrambled the police signal, so like, whoever they were chasing couldn't listen in.
- It really warms my heart that you guys still care about my content and watch and listen in.
- At first, Flynn denied all of this, but he got caught because turns out we listen in on every phone call to the Russian ambassador.
- So things like answering machines and caller ID, caller ID landlines where you can listen in on calls.
- You can learn a lot about how people speak just by sort of listening, like listening in coffee shops to how people talk and stuff.
- First, Gus and Rita Hauser couldn't be here today, but we expect that they might be listening in from afar.
- But then Kassel is listening in and she says your magic is mere folly for the eyes of children.
- But we all got to listen in and you could tell from the start that this was going to be special.
- See the kind of questions, listen in to their back discussion, see all the diligence, go to quarterly training.
- If you're recording, listening in on the activity of cells all across the brain, where is the earliest spot you can pick up a choice being made?
Examples
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Are the police listening in on this call?
-
Can you listen in on phone calls and stuff?
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But we all got to listen in and you could tell from the start that this was going to be special.
-
You have to listen in and tell me what to say.
-
I wanna talk to my wife without you listening in.
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We just wanted a private moment with you without Gabriel listening in.
-
ACE starts the engine to make it harder for anyone to listen in on their conversation.
Fiction book (1995) -
Both women are nosy and attempt to listen in on the conversation between Lucky and Justice.
Fiction book (1993) -
So I listened in on the conversation and that's how I first heard about Mothman.
-
The detective decided to listen in on their conversation to gather evidence.
Synonyms
65
7.3
To secretly listen to phone calls or messages to get information
23
5.0
To secretly listen to other people's private conversations without them knowing
How Secretive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The verb 'listen' plus the particle 'in' readily suggests listening into something, so a learner who knows both words can infer that it means to attend to a conversation or broadcast. However, the specific pragmatic sense of doing so quietly or without permission is an extended/idiomatic use of the particle 'in' and is not fully predictable from the literal meanings, so the expression is only partly transparent.
Etymology
The phrasal verb listen in comes from the simple image of someone putting their ear close to a door or group so their listen is in the conversation and they try not to be seen. That's why it means 'to listen secretly' or 'without permission'.