[-ING1.] The action of the verb LISTEN.
13[?]. K. Alis., 4798. Yif yee willeth yive listnyng, Now yee shullen here gode thing.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., IV. i. 68. This Cuffe was but to knocke at your eare, and beseech listning.
1641. Milton, Ch. Govt., II. Pref. Wks. 1738, I. 59. It were a folly to commit any thing elaborately compos’d to the careless and interrupted listening of these tumultuous times.
1847. Tennyson, Princess, VII. 95. Lonely listenings to my mutter’d dream.
b. Listening gallery Fortif. (see quot. 1872–6).
1833. Straith, Fortif., § 213. 160. Listening galleries.
1872–6. Voyle, Milit. Dict. (ed. 3), Ecoutes, listening galleries…. These galleries are run out under and beyond the glacis at regular distances in the direction of the besiegers’ works, and enable the besieged to hear and estimate how near the besiegers have carried their mining operations.
