Word.ws English Dictionary

hear through the grapevine

hear through the grapevine verb: to hear rumors; to learn through hearsay.

Verb

hear through the grapevine (third-person singular simple present hears through the grapevine, present participle hearing through the grapevine, simple past and past participle heard through the grapevine)

  1. (idiomatic) To hear rumors; to learn through hearsay.
    • I heard through the grapevine that she likes him.
    • I heard it through the grapevine / Not much longer would you be mine1966, Norman Whitfield, Barrett Strong, I Heard It Through the Grapevine
    Synonyms:
    hear on the grapevine, hear on the bush telegraph

Synonyms of hear through the grapevine

Forms of hear through the grapevine

third-person singular presenthears through the grapevine
present participlehearing through the grapevine
past participleheard through the grapevine
pastheard through the grapevine

Origin of hear through the grapevine

From the Grapevine, a telegraph line that ran from Placerville, California, to Virginia City, Nevada, beginning in 1859, and that was loosely strung from trees so that it curled like the vines of California grapes. In 1861 it was replaced by the Pacific Telegraph, which was strung from poles, and during the American Civil War "grapevine telegraph" became proverbialized to refer to poor and rumor-prone communications in areas cut off by the war.

Questions about hear through the grapevine

What does hear through the grapevine mean?
Hear through the grapevine means to hear rumors; to learn through hearsay.
What part of speech is hear through the grapevine?
Hear through the grapevine is a verb.
What is the past tense of hear through the grapevine?
The past tense of hear through the grapevine is heard through the grapevine.

Words near hear through the grapevine in the dictionary

  1. hear tell
  2. hear the end of it
  3. hear the grass grow
  4. hear the last of
  5. hear things
  6. hear through the grapevine
  7. hear voices
  8. hear what I'm saying
  9. hear ye
  10. hear'st
  11. hear, hear

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hear through the grapevine (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-hear through the grapevine.ogg.

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