[f. LISTEN v.]
† 1. Hearing, sense of hearing. Obs.
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 586. He þat fetly in face fettled alle eres If he has losed the lysten hit lyftez meruayle.
2. The action or an act of listening; a spell of listening or attentive hearing. Also listen-out (after look-out). Chiefly in phr. On or upon the listen: in the act of listening.
1803. Mary Charlton, Wife & Mistress, II. 151. They are always upon the listen in this house.
1807. trans. Three Germans, I. 6. Not the faintest … sound … reached their attentive listen. Ibid., II. 30. He remained upon the silent listen.
1817–8. Cobbett, Resid. U. S. (1822), 206. The anxious listen, the wistful look, and the dropping tear, of the disconsolate dams.
1834. J. Wilson, in Blackw. Mag., XXXVI. 729. They were alarmed, as they kept a listen-out, by an incessant barking.
1840. New Monthly Mag., LIX. 397. Mrs. Hawkey is … clearing her throat for a long talk, myself settled down … for a long listen.
1884. G. M. Fenn, Sweet Mace, II. xiii. 223. She was often on the watch, and always on the listen.
