listen in
verb
Simple meaning
Listen quietly, without contributing to the conversation.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
lisuhninSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈlɪsənɪn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Listen quietly, without contributing to the conversation
Listen without the speaker's knowledge
To listen without participating.
To eavesdrop; to listen secretly.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Listen quietly, without contributing to the conversation
Used this way, listen in is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.