voyeur
Americannoun
-
voyeurs
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of voyeur
First recorded in 1915–20; from French, equivalent to voi(r) “to see” (from Latin vidēre; cf. video ( def. )) + -eur -eur
Explanation
Make sure you close the curtains at night, just in case there’s a voyeur in the neighborhood. A voyeur is someone who likes to watch people without them knowing. The word voyeur came into English in the twentieth century from the French word voir, meaning “see.” A voyeur is someone who peeps, or spies on other people, watching them do things they probably don't want to be seen, or someone who likes to hear stories about strangers' private lives. When you spell voyeur, make sure you remember the ending is spelled “eur,” a legacy of the word’s French heritage.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Horrible people acting horribly is always entertaining, to a point—the point being when the viewer recognizes he has become a voyeur.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 9, 2026
Rather, it’s a clever way for Soderbergh to make the viewer feel like a voyeur, listening in on increasingly intimate conversations that we wouldn’t otherwise be privy to.
From Salon ● Jan. 24, 2025
But it rewards the attention of a committed voyeur, which all proper cineastes and many of our best provocateurs are anyway.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2023
The late Janet Malcolm memorably proclaimed that a biographer is like a “professional burglar” attempting to break into and enter a life — a busybody and voyeur masked in “an apparatus of scholarship.”
From Washington Post ● Mar. 3, 2023
In the wood there’s a small hole, at the back, next to the wall, about waist height, souvenir of some previous vandalism or legacy of an ancient voyeur.
From "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
For many of the gawkers and voyeurs, this is pure fantasy, a kind of calming, momentary escape.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 4, 2025
This explains why turnaround time between whatever actions Joan takes in the real world and the heightened, more attractive version served up to Streamberry voyeurs is so short.
From Salon ● Jun. 17, 2023
Secretly filming others has generally resulted in sentences no longer than 10 days, meaning that many Chinese women had "started wearing an additional layer of clothing to deter judgmental comments and would-be voyeurs".
From BBC ● Apr. 19, 2023
Ghosts are the ultimate voyeurs — writers in their ectoplasmic state.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2022
All those people out there in the shadows, watching the actors in the light, all those silent voyeurs as Bruce calls them.
From No Great Magic by Fritz Leiber
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
