Meaning
A warning that what you are saying may be overheard, so the conversation is not safe and you should speak carefully. Typically said in offices, hotels, or homes when sensitive matters are being discussed and a hidden or unnoticed listener may be close by. Conversational; usually a half-whispered caution dropped into the middle of a sensitive discussion. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The Online Etymology Dictionary attests the English proverb from the 1610s, a generation after the Tudor period, as a warning to speak cautiously because listeners may be concealed. It is not an English invention: exact counterparts existed in Latin (parietes habent aures) and French (les murs ont des oreilles), and the proverb circulated across Europe. Popular stories attach it to the tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse, said to have eavesdropped on prisoners through an ear-shaped cave, and to Catherine de' Medici's supposed listening tubes in the Louvre; both are legends rather than documented origins, and the Sicilian cave only acquired its name, the Ear of Dionysius, from the painter Caravaggio in 1608, roughly when the English phrase is first recorded. The honest conclusion is that the saying grew out of the universal experience of overheard conversations, with the colourful ancient stories attached afterwards.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- even the walls have ears
- the walls have ears
- these walls have ears
Usage Examples
- Lower your voice when we discuss the merger; walls have ears.
- He waited until the drive home to talk about the interview, remembering that walls have ears at the office.
- In a family of six, you learn early that walls have ears and secrets travel fast.