gossip mirror

From gossip (noun) +‎ mirror (noun), a calque of a North Germanic language (compare Finnish juorupeili and Swedish skvallerspegel), from the idea that such mirrors are used by gossips to spy on other people in the street.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɒsɪp ˌmɪɹə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɑsəp ˌmɪɹəɹ/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: gos‧sip mir‧ror

gossip mirror (plural gossip mirrors)

1. (architecture) A mirror or pair of mirrors mounted outside a window, allowing the viewer to see along a street while remaining indoors.

   Synonym: street mirror

   • 1891 June, Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen, “The Elixir of Pain. Chapter X.”, in The Cosmopolitan: A Monthly Illustrated Magazine, volume XI, number 2, New York, N.Y.: The Cosmopolitan Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 205, column 2:

     Röschen was keeping watch at the gossip-mirror in the library window, and would give warning as soon as she saw the great R and his Hindoo adept in the distance.

   • 1952, March Cost [pseudonym; Margaret Mackie Morrison], “Thursday … 10 a.m.”, in The Hour Awaits, 1st American edition, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC, page 86:

     Hand in hand after dinner they wandered through the streets of narrow, stilted houses with heavy, ornate balconies and brilliant doors, set in dull yellow or olive stucco, and their passage was reflected at all angles from the gossip-mirror adroitly fixed to every window.

   • 1990, Jens Peter Jacobsen, translated by Tiina Nunnally, edited by Steven T. Murray, Niels Lyhne […] (Fjord Modern Classics; no. 2), Seattle, Wash.: Fjord Press, →ISBN, page 131:

     There was something of a winter evening’s coziness over the room—to be shut inside four walls—and besides, it was so good to have rain, everything needed water so badly, and when it really pelted down and drummed with heavy drops on the casing of the gossip mirror, the sound called up fleeting, blurred images of lush green fields and fresh leaves, and someone would exclaim to himself: "Look how it's raining!" and gaze at the windowpanes with a feeling of contentedness and with a little spark of pleasure, in a half-conscious communion with what was outside.

   • 2008, “Field Trips”, in Kathie Meizner, Lisa Nevans Locke, Meg Thale, editors, Going Places with Children in Washington, DC, 17th edition, Rockville, Md.: Green Acres School, →ISBN, page 349:

     Children also enjoy walking on a cobblestone street while looking for boot scrapers, gossip mirrors and historical artifacts.

• gossip-mirror

• busybody