audibility
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Explanation
Audibility refers to the quality of being hearable. You might say, for example, that someone is a great presenter for the most part, but the audibility of her voice is an issue because you can hardly hear her talk. Audibility is, in many ways, literally in the ears of the hearer. A sound may be loud enough and in the right frequency range to be heard by many or most people, but not by someone with reduced hearing acuity. And the audibility of certain sounds often depends on the type of animal that's listening. Dogs, bats, dolphins, and many other animals can hear higher sounds than people can. Elephants can hear sounds at lower frequencies than people can hear.
Vocabulary lists containing audibility
Common Senses: Aud ("Hear")
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Roots: aud
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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.
The googly-eyed robots slow down near pedestrians and stop entirely if proximity becomes too close, emit a running sound for audibility, and use 360-degree lights at night to appear in the peripheral vision of humans.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 5, 2026
You could easily have missed the piece unless you stopped and let your ears adjust to its liminal audibility.
From New York Times ● Feb. 8, 2024
Have you ever experienced what I call audibility fatigue at the theater — the feeling of exhausted defeat that sets in when you lose half the words in musical amplification issues or garbled vocal execution?
From Washington Post ● Jul. 10, 2022
The company says this boosts the midrange and “lowers down part of the audio spectrum which is not on the voice human spectrum and can impact audibility of a voice.”
From The Verge ● Sep. 13, 2021
The predictability and audibility of the beat also allows others to join in.
From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones
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.
