[f. the sb.]
1. a. To pester with private importunities or admonitions. b. To influence, bias (a person) by secret communications; to insinuate oneself into the confidence of a person).
1837. Marryat, Dog-fiend (L.). He was so sure to be earwigged in private that what he heard or said openly went for little.
1839. Dickens, O. Twist (1850), 251/2. Suppose he was to do all this … not grabbed, trapped, tried, earwigged by the parson … but of his own fancy.
1839. Blackw. Mag., XLV. 767. Each secretary of state is earwigged by a knot of sturdy beggars.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Ear-wigging. Feeding an officer’s ear with scandal against an absent individual.
2. in pa. pple. ? Having a ‘maggot’ or craze in one’s brain. nonce-use.
1880. Browning, Pietro, 340. The people clamour, Hold their peace, now fight, now fondle, earwigged through the brains.
