overhears

present tense third-person singular of overhear
as in hears
to listen to (another in private conversation) it's not polite to try to overhear intimate friends sharing confidences

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of overhears Nathan overhears a snippet of this exchange, which convinces him that Joe is engaged in an all-out smear campaign against him. — Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 1 Sep. 2026 At one point, Piker overhears his brother telling me about his old job as an aerospace engineer at Boeing. — Josh Eells, Rolling Stone, 9 Aug. 2026 Season 3 picks up after her boyfriend Alex Walter (Ashby Gentry) overhears Jackie and his brother Cole Walter (Noah LaLonde) confess their feelings for each other. — Kelly Allen, PEOPLE, 6 Aug. 2026 Mami overhears our conversation and gives us a crisp hundred-peso note, plasticky and purple. — Joseph Trinidad, Longreads, 16 June 2026 When Dickens overhears his son Baby chatting with Andersen during storytime, and the child’s painful stutter is gone, Dickens is grateful, at least temporarily, for Andersen’s presence. — Stuart Miller, Oc Register, 10 June 2026 An engineer overhears a sales call where a partner is requesting a specific feature and immediately huddles with the salesperson once the line clicks shut. — Vikram Joshi, Forbes.com, 1 June 2026 Rebekah overhears this plan and urges Jacob to disguise himself as Esau. — Charles Preston, Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Mar. 2026 Sophie overhears Anthony confront Benedict in the study, but Benedict puts up a solid argument that his brother, who has just returned from a trip to India with his wife Kate (Simone Ashley) and their son Edmund, hasn’t witnessed his planning and love for Sophie. — Dessi Gomez, Deadline, 26 Feb. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for overhears
Verb
  • Every audience hears about the tweets from Michigan’s William Lawrence, condemning the nuclear family, and New York’s Darializa Avila Chevalier, about how July 4 should be about the liberation of Palestine and Puerto Rico.
    — David Weigel, semafor.com, 2 Oct. 2026
  • In the song’s closing moments, the Edge hears something older than country music in Parton’s voice.
    — Brian Hiatt, Rolling Stone, 28 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • Late one night, Clark spies what appears to be a sliver of light coming through a crack in the wall of the store’s basement.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 14 June 2026
  • In Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s The Finding of Moses, a dog spies a young girl whose presence unlocks the painting’s meaning.
    — Boris Kachka, The Atlantic, 5 June 2026
Verb
  • Any attempt to relieve the pressure on prisons shifts onto the probation service, which monitors offenders serving their sentence in the community.
    — Issy Ronald, CNN Money, 30 Sep. 2026
  • Business owners, technology leaders and risk teams need clarity about who owns the process, who determines acceptable risk, who monitors performance and who has the authority to intervene.
    — Jayasri Ranganathan, Forbes.com, 29 Sep. 2026

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Cite this Entry

“Overhears.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/overhears. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026.

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