Adjacent Words

Peeping Tom definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a viewer who enjoys seeing the sex acts or sex organs of others [syn: voyeur, Peeping Tom, peeper]

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: Peeping Tom, legendary citizen of Coventry who watched Lady Godiva riding naked Date: circa 1796 a pruriently prying person ; voyeur • Peeping Tomism noun

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(Peeping Toms) If you refer to someone as a Peeping Tom, you mean that they secretly watch other people, especially when those people are taking their clothes off. = voyeur N-COUNT [disapproval]

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

A nick name for a curious prying fellow; derived from an old legendary tale, told of a taylor of Coventry, who, when Godiva countess of Chester rode at noon quite naked through that town, in order to procure certain immunities for the inhabitants, (notwithstanding the rest of the people shut up their houses) shly peeped out of his window, for which he was miraculously struck blind. His figure, peeping out of a window, is still kept up in remembrance of the transaction.

Moby Thesaurus

Paul Pry, busybody, eavesdropper, gossip, inquirer, inquisitive, inquisitor, nosy Parker, pry, querier, querist, questioner, quidnunc, rubberneck, rubbernecker, scopophiliac, sightseer, snoop, snooper, voyeur, yenta