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A.Word.A.Day--peeping tom

peeping Tom (PEE-ping tom) noun

A person who gets pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, from secretly watching others; a voyeur.

[After the legendary Peeping Tom of Coventry*, England, who was the only person to see the Lady Godiva, an English noblewoman of the eleventh century riding naked as a means of persuading her husband, Leofric, Earl of Mercia, to lower taxes.]

"But visitors like to draw the curtains in the guest room. I think they are uncomfortable with trees and sky and have an innate fear of Peeping Toms." Celestine Sibley, Once you make views known, don't skirt 'em, The Atlanta Constitution, 6 Nov 1998.

* Coventry was featured in AWAD in April 1999 during a week of toponyms. See the archives https://www.wordsmith.org/awad/themes.html . -Anu

This week's theme: eponyms.

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