Word Request – Verb for Listening Stealthily

word-request

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:

Secretly listen to a conversation.
‘my father eavesdropped on my phone calls’

(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.

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