listen
Americanverb (used without object)
-
listens,
present (3rd person singular)
-
listened,
past participle, past
-
listening
present participle
-
to give attention with the ear; attend closely for the purpose of hearing; give ear.
-
to pay attention; heed; obey (often followed byto ).
Children don't always listen to their parents.
-
to wait attentively for a sound (usually followed byfor ).
to listen for sounds of their return.
-
Informal. to convey a particular impression to the hearer; sound.
The new recording doesn't listen as well as the old one.
verb (used with object)
-
listens,
present (3rd person singular)
-
listened,
past participle, past
-
listening
present participle
verb phrase
verb
-
to concentrate on hearing something
-
to take heed; pay attention
I told you many times but you wouldn't listen
Synonym Usage
See hear.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
listensimple
-
listenssimple
-
have listenedperfect
-
has listenedperfect
-
am listeningprogressive
-
are listeningprogressive
-
is listeningprogressive
-
have been listeningperfect progressive
-
has been listeningperfect progressive
Past
-
listenedsimple
-
had listenedperfect
-
was listeningprogressive
-
were listeningprogressive
-
had been listeningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of listen
First recorded before 950; Middle English lis(t)nen, Old English hlysnan; cognate with Middle High German lüsenen, Swedish lyssna; akin to list 5
Explanation
If you really listen late at night after everyone's asleep, you'll hear the noises your house makes — the creaking of walls and floors, the hum of the refrigerator, the banging of the radiators. When you listen to something, you don't just hear it, but you really pay attention to the sounds. You can listen to music, listen for the sound of your guests arriving, or listen to the advice your grandfather gives you. The phrase listen in means to eavesdrop on, or deliberately overhear, a conversation. The t in the middle of the word listen is silent (you can't hear it even if you listen).
Vocabulary lists containing listen
Mother's Day Words: What Mothers Do
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Part 1 Vocabulary (Unit 3)
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Spelling Practice, Unit 7
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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:
“I’m taking things as they come, trying not to listen to too much of the noise.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2026
“I didn’t listen to Led Zeppelin until I was well into my 20s,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 3, 2026
It’s hard to listen to the selection of music and understand how any music business professional didn’t think this band had serious potential.
From Salon ● Nov. 3, 2026
Tanisha, who is also a singer-songwriter and producer, feels in a world where algorithms influence what we listen to, it's important to still have platforms curated by music lovers.
From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2026
He loved the snow: pouncing on it and tossing lumps of ice high in the air, then skidding to a halt to listen to lemmings and snowvoles burrowing under the surface.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
He makes crawfish, listens to Frankie Beverly and Maze, and doesn’t ingratiate himself with the sports media machine, largely a white institutional space.
From Salon ● Oct. 21, 2026
To pass the time, Mauri surfs YouTube, listens to music or stand-up comedy, or watches golf.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2026
If the above sounds familiar, then you might already be a Wholigan — someone who routinely listens to the long-running celebrity podcast “Who? Weekly.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2026
The idea was to put on Krapp's Last Tape, an intense one-man play in which an ageing writer listens back to recordings of his younger self, remembering a lifetime of regrets and missed opportunities.
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2026
Mrs. Park is the type of mom who asks a bunch of questions but actually listens to your answers and remembers what you said later.
From "Amina's Song" by Hena Khan
Another shared grievance is the widespread feeling of not being listened to, which is leading to an increasing "distance" and "dissociation" between ordinary people and the state, said Pleyers.
From Barron's ● Nov. 3, 2026
It is a rallying cry coined by Frelick as a way to remind Milwaukee’s hitters to make every at-bat a fight—and they have listened.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 25, 2026
While waiting for the magic to start, we listened to the hi-hat riff of ice cubes click-clacking as Stotler worked a cocktail shaker.
From Salon ● Oct. 24, 2026
Participants from both Western European and East Asian cultures watched and listened to different versions of the speakers before rating how confident their answers appeared.
From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2026
Torak listened, never taking his eyes off Wolf.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
"If you want to go searching for good feedback on social media and you're listening to phone-ins, you probably won't find much," England says.
From BBC ● Nov. 3, 2026
Hatton said the council was listening to young people but acknowledged there was more work to be done to "learn lessons from the past".
From BBC ● Nov. 3, 2026
She grew up a news junkie, watching and listening to the news with her father during the civil rights movement, seeing how difficult integration was in the South.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2026
By the time economists changed their tune, politicians weren’t listening.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2026
“Why didn’t you tell Mae about the compromised lines? The spies you think may be listening in?”
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
