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What were the large working-class audiences at 17th-century theaters called?

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audience

American  

[aw-dee-uhns] / ˈɔ di əns /

noun

• audiences
  plural

1. the group of spectators at a public event; listeners or viewers collectively, as in attendance at a theater or concert.

   The audience was respectful of the speaker's opinion.

2. the persons reached by a book, radio or television broadcast, etc.; public.

   Some works of music have a wide and varied audience.

3. a regular public that manifests interest, support, enthusiasm, or the like; a following.

   Every art form has its audience.

4. opportunity to be heard; chance to speak to or before a person or group; a hearing.

5. a formal interview with a sovereign, high officer of government, or other high-ranking person.

   an audience with the pope.

6. the act of hearing, or attending to, words or sounds.

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audience British  

/ ˈɔːdɪəns /

noun

1. a group of spectators or listeners, esp at a public event such as a concert or play

2. the people reached by a book, film, or radio or television programme

3. the devotees or followers of a public entertainer, lecturer, etc; regular public

4. an opportunity to put one's point of view, such as a formal interview with a monarch or head of state

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Grammar

See collective noun.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• proaudience
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• audiences
  plural

Etymology

Origin of audience

First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin audientia “act of listening, group of listeners,” from audient-, stem of audiēns “hearing” (present participle of audīre “to hear”) + -ia -ia ( def. )

Explanation

An audience can be people watching a performance, or an opportunity to speak with someone important, like an audience with your favorite actor at a "meet and greet" event. The noun audience can describe all the people watching a performance, or the part of the general public interested in a specific type of information or entertainment. For example, the audience for a show about raising children might be parents or other care-givers. Finally, an audience can be a meeting or interview, like an audience with your school's principal.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

audience audiences

In “SagradX,” Marquez’s body is documented vulnerably; easing into her own identity becoming a painfully honest artistic process, which the audience is now invited to watch.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026

Speaking at the same event, the head of open-source messaging application Signal, Meredith Whittaker, warned about AI being controlled by a handful of billionaires, but urged the audience "don't buy the hype".

From Barron's ● Sep. 4, 2026

Vance has turned his marriage into a 21st century “Taming of the Shrew,” selling his audience the fantasy of taking a smart, accomplished career woman and reducing her to a submissive housewife.

From Salon ● Sep. 4, 2026

In London, their audience skewed young: The queue for pick and mix was longer than the one for the bar.

From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026

It was then that I noticed that our audience had disappeared.

From "Glitch" by Laura Martin

Isaiah Berlin called Alexander Herzen “a Russian Voltaire,” who astonished his 19th- century audiences with a “prodigal opulence of intellect.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026

In an era when short TikTok and YouTube videos are being blamed for eroding attention spans and fueling a reading crisis, social media, it transpires, is creating new audiences for the classics.

From Barron's ● Sep. 4, 2026

Their music reached wider audiences through commercial recordings, folk festivals and live radio broadcasts.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026

This year there are fewer obvious awards heavyweights in the mix, at a time when prestige and independent films have become harder to finance, distribute and sell to audiences.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026

The method today has many refinements, but then it consisted of working the always shifting edges of the audiences that others had managed to draw.

From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey

Related Words

• congregation
• crowd
• gallery
• gathering
• market
• public