walls have ears
Preserved but no longer current.
Things uttered in secret get rumoured abroad; there are listeners everywhere, and you'd better be careful. Certain rooms in the Louvre were said to be so C9nstructed in the time of Catherine de' Medicis, that what was said in one room could be distinctly heard in an9ther. It was by this contrivance that the suspicious queen became acquainted with state secrets and plots. The tubes of communication were called the auriculaires. Cp.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “walls have ears” mean?
Things uttered in secret get rumoured abroad; there are listeners everywhere, and you'd better be careful. Certain rooms in the Louvre were said to be so C9nstructed in the time of Catherine de' Medicis, that what was said in one room could be distinctly heard in an9ther. It was by this contrivance that the suspicious queen became acquainted with state secrets and plots. The tubes of communication were called the auriculaires. Cp.
Is “walls have ears” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.