overhearing
overhearing is the present participle and gerund of overhear.
Meaning of overhear
Verb
overhear (third-person singular simple present overhears, present participle overhearing, simple past and past participle overheard)
- To hear something that was not meant for one's ears.
- I was hanging clothes in the garden and I overheard the neighbours talking about Sheila's pregnancy.
Noun
overhearing (plural overhearings)
- The act by which something is overheard.
- Where overhearings were intended, as in conversations that girls wanted boys to overhear, the speaker often directed her gaze at the boy who was supposed to overhear while turning her mouth toward the ear of the listener.2006, Amy Shuman, Storytelling Rights, page 25
Forms of overhearing
| plural | overhearings |
|---|
Questions about overhearing
- What does overhearing mean?
- Overhearing means the act by which something is overheard.
- What is overhearing the present participle and gerund of?
- Overhearing is the present participle and gerund of overhear.
- What part of speech is overhearing?
- Overhearing is a noun.
- What is the plural of overhearing?
- The plural of overhearing is overhearings.
Words near overhearing in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: overhearing (page history and authors); overhear (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:
Cite this entry: “overhearing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overhearing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.