peeping tom

• peeping Tom, Peeping Tom

From Peeping Tom, a tailor in the legend of Lady Godiva who watched Godiva riding naked.

peeping tom (plural peeping toms)

1. A person who watches another without the other's permission and usually without the other's knowledge, especially for the purpose of deriving sexual pleasure from the sight of the other.
   • 1957, "A Question of Justice," Time, 3 Jun.,

     Reynolds contended that the Chinese was a peeping tom whom he caught spying on his wife one night last March while she was toweling herself after a shower.

   • 2000, Jeffrey Geri, Oh, Henry →ISBN, page 148:

     The girls complained about peeping Toms. There was a skylight window in the communal ladies' shower, and one night Jennie and a friend looked up while showering, to see two young male faces staring at them from above.

   • 2005, a UM student quoted in College Prowler: University Of Michigan: off the record →ISBN, page 20:

     "They claim that the security is good at UM, but we had five break-ins into student dorms and numerous reports of peeping Toms in the women's dorm bathrooms."

• peeper
• voyeur

• gatecrasher, interloper, persona non grata, encroacher, backseat driver, kibitzer, meddler, nosy parker, marplot, buttinsky, busybody, voyeurism