- present participle of hear.
hearing
Americannoun
-
hearings
plural
-
the faculty or sense by which sound is perceived.
-
the act of perceiving sound.
-
opportunity to be heard.
to grant a hearing.
-
an instance or a session in which testimony and arguments are presented, especially before an official, as a judge in a lawsuit.
- Synonyms:
- consultation, conference, audience
-
a preliminary examination of the basic evidence and charges by a magistrate to determine whether criminal procedures, a trial, etc., are justified.
-
earshot.
Their conversation was beyond my hearing.
noun
-
the faculty or sense by which sound is perceived
-
an opportunity to be listened to
-
the range within which sound can be heard; earshot
-
the investigation of a matter by a court of law, esp the preliminary inquiry into an indictable crime by magistrates
-
a formal or official trial of an action or lawsuit
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of hearing
Middle English word dating back to 1175–1225; see origin at hear, -ing 1
Explanation
Hearing is the sense that allows you to distinguish sounds with your ears. Dogs have a particularly acute sense of hearing, and they can hear sounds pitched too high for humans to hear. You use your hearing when you attend a concert, listen to an audio book, or talk to a friend on the phone. Another kind of hearing is a legal process at which people state a case in front of a judge, so she can decide whether or not it should be presented at a trial with a jury. This kind of hearing gets its name from the idea that the court is "listening" to the evidence.
Vocabulary lists containing hearing
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:
“I’m tired of hearing you and him arguing all the time!”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
Because you were hearing for a while from teachers with film students who couldn’t sit through a movie.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026
The 24-year-old had rushed back from Kathmandu on Wednesday after hearing about the disaster, but has received no news of her missing mother and younger brother.
From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026
"Just hearing mum's voice properly again was an enormous relief," he added.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
I was still hearing it again in my head when we were back upstairs in our attic room that night, huddled under our blankets.
From "An Elephant in the Garden" by Michael Morpurgo
Those hearings were “the first to proceed under a recently amended Tennessee Supreme Court rule allowing review of the method or timing of a scheduled execution.”
From Slate ● Aug. 25, 2026
And during Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s 2017 confirmation hearings, some media outlets claimed that President Donald Trump’s nominee had plagiarized parts of his 2006 book about assisted suicide.
From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2026
Legislators called King asking who to bring in to testify at hearings; he recommended Barton.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
The first trial was dramatically annulled last year after two-and-a-half months of hearings, following revelations that one of the judges overseeing it took part in a clandestine documentary about the case.
From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026
Now as an Elder-in-Training he was supposed to be at the Council Hall, preparing for the day’s hearings, but he just couldn’t.
From "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" by Kelly Barnhill
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.
