audience

From Middle English audience, from Middle French audience, from Old French audience, from Latin audientia, from present participle audiens (“hearing”), from verb audio (“I hear”). Doublet of audiencia.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɔːdiəns/, /ˈɔːdɪəns/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɔdiəns/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ˈɑdiəns/

• Audio (USA)

  (file)

audience (plural audiences)

1. A group of people within hearing; specifically, a large gathering of people listening to or watching a performance, speech, etc. [from 15th c.]

   We joined the audience just as the lights went down.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 26:

     One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.”  He at once secured attention by his informal method, and when presently the coughing of Jarvis […] interrupted the sermon, he altogether captivated his audience with a remark about cough lozenges being cheap and easily procurable.

2. (now rare) Hearing; the condition or state of hearing or listening. [from 14th c.]
   • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Luke vij:[1], folio lxxxiiij, verso:

     WHen he had ended all his ſayingꝭ in the audience of the people / he entred ĩto Capernaum.

3. A widespread or nationwide viewing or listening public, as of a TV or radio network or program.
4. A formal meeting with a state or religious dignitary. [from 16th c.]

   She managed to get an audience with the Pope.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel:

     Captain Anderson: Sounds like you convinced the Council to give us an audience.
     Ambassador Udina: They were not happy about it. Saren's their top agent. They don't like him being accused of treason.

5. The readership of a book or other written publication. [from 19th c.]

   "Private Eye" has a small but faithful audience.

6. A following. [from 20th c.]

   The opera singer expanded his audience by singing songs from the shows.

7. (historical) An audiencia (judicial court of the Spanish empire), or the territory administered by it.

• In some lects, audience is used as a plurale tantum.

  The audience are getting restless.

• hearership, listenership
• (large gathering of people watching a performance): spectators, crowd

• audience on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Audience (meeting) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Inherited from Old French audience, borrowed from Latin audientia, from present participle audiēns (“hearing”), from verb audiō (“to hear”).

• IPA^(key): /o.djɑ̃s/

• audio

  (file)

audience f (plural audiences)

1. audience, viewer

   Synonyms: attention, entretien, séance

• salle d’audience

• audimat
• audimètre
• auditeur, auditrice
• audition
• auditoire

• “audience”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Borrowed from English audience, from Latin audientia, derived from audiēns, present active participle of audiō (“to hear, listen to”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈɔ.djens/, /ˈo.djens/[1]
• Rhymes: -ɔdjens, -odjens
• Hyphenation: au‧dience

audience f (uncountable)

1. audience (widespread or nationwide viewing or listening public)

• udienza