I am wondering if there's a verb that means "listening stealthily" or "listening to someone or a group of people without having him/them know".
I am highly confident that there's a verb, but I can't seem to remember what it was.
Just so that we're in the same page, here's an example:
John put his ears over the door to ___ at the private conversation between the king and the queen.
Best Answer
The word you're looking for is probably eavesdrop:
(source: Lexico powered by Oxford Dictionaries)
@Zikato reminded me of this scene from The Fellowship of the Ring where Sam is caught eavesdropping (around 2:45) on a secret conversation between Gandalf and Frodo.