auditory
Americanadjective
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Anatomy, Physiology. pertaining to hearing, to the sense of hearing, or to the organs of hearing.
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perceived through or resulting from the sense of hearing.
auditory hallucinations.
noun
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auditories
plural
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an assembly of hearers; audience.
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an auditorium, especially the nave of a church.
adjective
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of auditory
1350–1400; Middle English < Late Latin audītōrius relating to hearing. See auditor, -tory 1
Explanation
If you describe something as auditory, it is related to the process of hearing. If someone says "Surrender Dorothy" and you hear "Where's the laundry," you have an auditory problem. The word auditory is based on the Latin word audire, meaning to hear. If you have an auditory processing disorder, you may have trouble discerning conversation in a noisy room, or hear a ringing sound at all times. Some teachers think there's something wrong with their students' auditory capacity, but actually they're just being ignored.
Vocabulary lists containing auditory
Common Senses: Aud ("Hear")
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aud
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UCPS 6th Grade Roots List #2
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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.
See Examples For:
Because electric vehicles don't have the auditory cues and vibrations from the engine that we're used to, which indicate when the car is accelerating, this could trigger motion sickness, Di Giulio says.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026
The next time I sit through another auditory gauntlet on the number 29, I will keep that in mind.
From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026
When activity in either the auditory cortex or somatosensory cortex was disrupted, participants showed significantly poorer retention of the speech movements they had learned.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 23, 2026
And then the 1970s British folk rock gives way to a less pleasant auditory landscape, as the hum appears, bringing on headaches and nosebleeds and affecting her concentration and mood, her work and family.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 12, 2026
The primary auditory cortex is one of the oldest and first developed areas of the human brain, suggesting that recognizing timbre is an extremely important function in human evolution.
From "Music and the Child" by Natalie Sarrazin
These Lectures, in their original form, were delivered at Geneva, and afterwards at Lausanne, before two auditories which together numbered about two thousand five hundred men.
From The Heavenly Father Lectures on Modern Atheism by Henry Downton
Let us, then, contemplate a little closer the different kinds of concerts—their features and their character—their performers and their auditories.
From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 by Robert Chambers
At the start these ladies delivered their message to women only, but by-and-bye as the fame of their eloquence spread men began to appear among their auditories.
From William Lloyd Garrison The Abolitionist by Archibald Henry Grimké
Its future auditories will be the generations of men, as they rise up before it and gather round it’ Webster.
From The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 Volume 23, Number 2 by Various
He saw his neighbors' ears clogged, and he was prepared to die howling if only he could pierce those encrusted auditories.
From Mary, Mary by Padraic Colum
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.
