13.. K. Alis. 4798 Yif yee willeth yive listnyng, Now yee shullen here gode thing.

a1616 W. Shakespeare Taming of Shrew (1623) iv. i. 58 This Cuffe was but to knocke at your eare, and beseech listning . View more context for this quotation

1641 J. Milton Reason Church-govt. 36 It were a folly to commit any thing elaborately compos'd to the carelesse and interrupted listening of these tumultuous times.

1847 Ld. Tennyson Princess vii. 147 Lonely listenings to my mutter'd dream.

1904 Electr. World & Engineer 7 May 875/2 The removal of the operator's plug, or her ‘listening-in’, restores the circuits to their proper condition for subsequent use.

1921 Wireless World 10 Dec. 581/1 ‘Listening in’ was indulged in.

1922 Daily Mail 23 Nov. 5 Listening-in to U.S.

1925 A. Huxley Those Barren Leaves ii. v. 149 But of what use is leisure, when leisure is occupied with listening-in and going to football matches?

1927 Sat. Evening Post (Philadelphia) 24 Dec. 80/2 These telephones were connected with a listening-in device concealed behind a picture on the wall.

1929 Radio Times 8 Nov. 389/3 The sounds heard had emerged from the loud-speaker of the caretaker... The caretaker was extremely annoyed at this interruption to his listening.

1939 War Illustr. 21 Oct. p. ii/1 Its [sc. the B.B.C.'s] dud programmes have led to a great falling-off in listening.

1940 Manch. Guardian Weekly 2 Feb. 83 From South West Germany it is stated that controllers have been appointed in blocks of flats to supervise the listening-in.

1941 B.B.C. Gloss. Broadcasting Terms 17 Listening log, list, in prescribed form, of the broadcast programmes heard by one person over a period of time.

1951 J. B. Priestley Festival at Farbridge ii. ii. 217 Dan Cobbley was another radio personality, although he was on a lower listening figure level.

1957 Encycl. Brit. X. 619/2 The new possibilities for continuous listening helped enormously. On the debit side was the tendency especially of solo artists to record whole programs on LP disks, repeating endlessly the same established repertoire.

1969 John Edwards Mem. Foundation Q. 5 iv. 126 The transcriptions of the songs..are as nearly accurate as I can make them. After countless listenings I still can't make out some of the words.

1971 Gloss. Electrotechnical, Power Terms (B.S.I.) iii. ii. 31 Listening-in, listening to a call in progress.

1938 Listener 25 May 1120/2 There must be a great deal of material available on this subject which would make more good listening.

1962 Listener 11 Jan. 104/1 Redmond Macdonogh's Five Days to Friday..proved compulsive listening.

1966 Listener 10 Feb. 221/3 The portrayal of..the jostling and jockeying of the foreign ambassadors, made really good listening.

1985 Church Times 19 July 9/3 Other incidents in his life also made interesting listening.

1833 H. Straith Treat. Fortif. §213. 160 Listening galleries.

1872–6 G. E. Voyle Mil. Dict. (ed. 3) Ecoutes, listening galleries... These galleries are run out under and beyond the glacis at regular distances in the direction of the besiegers' works, and enable the besieged to hear and estimate how near the besiegers have carried their mining operations.

1906 J. Poole Pract. Telephone Handbk. (ed. 3) x. 159 (heading) Kellogg combined listening and ringing key.

1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict. 505/1 Listening key, the lever key which the operator throws, to put her head-set on to a cord circuit and speak to a subscriber.

1916 War Illustr. 5 69/1 At a listening-post.

1918 E. S. Farrow Dict. Mil. Terms Listening Posts, sheltered positions in advance of a defensive line for the purpose of early detection of the enemy's movements.

1928 E. Blunden Undertones of War xv. 167 The men lying at each listening-post were freezing stiff.

1945 Life 19 Nov. 119/2 The barbed wire was up everywhere, and the few listening posts that we did have at Vichy, at General Weygand's North African Headquarters—were in perpetual danger of sabotage by the well-meaning but essentially stupid remonstrances of the more emotional Left press.

1961 Guardian 29 May 9/5 Vienna is Europe's busiest listening post.

1965 Mrs. L. B. Johnson White House Diary 3 Nov. (1970) 335 John Gronouski was seated on my left and I enjoyed hearing him talk about Poland and how it serves as a sort of listening post for what is going on in Red China.

1971 J. Tunstall Journalists at Work iii. 86 Fairly standard features are centres like Hong Kong and Beirut which are used as ‘listening posts’ and jumping-off points for covering China and South East Asia, and the Middle East respectively.

1972 Guardian 25 Jan. 15/8 Paris uses the Commission mainly as a listening post to find out what the others are up to.