wiretap
Americannoun
-
wiretaps
plural
verb (used with object)
-
wiretaps,
present (3rd person singular)
-
wiretapped,
past participle, past
-
wiretapping
present participle
-
to obtain (information, evidence, etc.) by tapping telephone or telegraph wires.
to wiretap conversations.
-
to listen in on by means of a wiretap.
to wiretap a telephone; to wiretap a conversation.
verb (used without object)
-
wiretaps,
present (3rd person singular)
-
wiretapped,
past participle, past
-
wiretapping
present participle
adjective
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
wiretapsimple
-
wiretapssimple
-
have wiretappedperfect
-
has wiretappedperfect
-
am wiretappingprogressive
-
are wiretappingprogressive
-
is wiretappingprogressive
-
have been wiretappingperfect progressive
-
has been wiretappingperfect progressive
Past
-
wiretappedsimple
-
had wiretappedperfect
-
was wiretappingprogressive
-
were wiretappingprogressive
-
had been wiretappingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of wiretap
First recorded in 1950–55; back formation from wiretapper
Explanation
To wiretap is to secretly listen in on someone's phone conversation. In some cases, the FBI will use a wiretap to investigate a serious federal crime. A wiretap is either the act of surveillance with a listening device or the device itself: "They put a wiretap on the mob boss's home phone, but he always uses a cellphone." As a verb, wiretap means to use such a device: "The government can't wiretap someone without a warrant." Since the invention of the telephone, law enforcement has used wiretaps — originally from the sense of tapping (obtaining information from) a telephone wire.
Vocabulary lists containing wiretap
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Spies
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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:
This followed uproar in the EU after Spain's Ministry of the Interior awarded Chinese tech giant Huawei a €12.3m contract to store and manage sensitive judicial wiretap data last year.
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
In fact, conspirators were overheard on a wiretap saying they “wouldn’t trust Joe” to agree to their scheme.
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2025
An investigation into the firings unearthed an even more alarming detail: the aides had been outed by a warrantless wiretap.
From Salon ● May 27, 2025
The case against him seemed damning when a wiretap captured a KGB officer instructing Ogorodnikova to lure Miller to Warsaw, which was part of the Soviet Bloc.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2025
Beginning that very month, Harvey's wiretap commenced recording thousands of classified conversations among Soviet and East German military officials.
From "Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia" by Marc Favreau
According to an annual government report, the number of wiretaps obtained by DHS — often to investigate drug trafficking — plummeted to 23 in 2025, from 133 the previous year.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
There are cases where there are millions of pages and the defendant needs significant time to review millions of pages of emails, text messages, and listen to hundreds of hours of wiretaps.
From Slate ● Jan. 7, 2026
The legal notifications, under the terms of the 1968 Federal Wiretap Act, are sent out routinely to people whose private communications have been captured on federal wiretaps.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 19, 2025
Nabu has been releasing new snippets of its investigation and wiretaps every day and on Tuesday it promised more would come.
From BBC ● Nov. 12, 2025
At last, technicians reached the Soviet cables, carefully exposing the inner wires and grafting on the wiretaps.
From "Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia" by Marc Favreau
The anti-corruption bureau shared part of a wiretapped conversation as part of its case and said six more people had been identified as suspects.
From BBC ● May 12, 2026
The intelligence officers scribbled notes on wiretapped phone calls and typed thousands of pages of reports on opposition activities.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 29, 2025
The anti-corruption agency then gradually released a series of videos featuring wiretapped conversations of those implicated in the scheme.
From Barron's ● Nov. 13, 2025
People I knew and I, myself, were wiretapped and followed by FBI and military intelligence agents.
From Salon ● May 6, 2025
There's no psi on us but we may be wiretapped by BEB—lots of law offices are and trainees connected with them.
From The Psilent Partner by John Victor Peterson
Four people have been found guilty and given jail terms by a Greek court after a wiretapping scandal shook the country in 2022.
From BBC ● Feb. 26, 2026
Assuming they’d followed the law, arranging such surveillance would have involved a number of legal and technical steps, including securing a wiretapping warrant.
From Salon ● Jun. 25, 2025
Federal law is focused on preventing wiretapping, mandating that at least one party to the call knows that it’s being recorded.
From Slate ● Oct. 31, 2024
According to the memo, dated April 26, Los Angeles police brought a case to prosecutors in January, requesting that they charge Vasquez and Leon with illegally recording a conversation and wiretapping.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 10, 2024
Saidy suggested that there was an actual plot to keep Fischer from becoming World Champion, and this involved the wiretapping of his parents’ phone.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
