audition

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin audītiō (“a hearing, a listening”), partly through audicion,^[2][3][4][5] a noun of action formed on the past participle of audiō (“to hear”),^[6][7][2] from Proto-Indo-European *au- (“to perceive”).^[2][6] The same verb gave audible, audience and auditor.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The power or faculty of hearing: 1599, in a translation of Oswald Gaebelkhover's Boock of Physicke.^[5][3][4] Etymonline and the Oxford Dictionary of English also date this sense to the late 16th century.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) knew the word only in this sense, "Hearing".^[10] The action of hearing or listening is recorded from 1656,^[5][2] and something heard, rarely, from 1762, in Horace Walpole's letters.^[5][8] The theatrical sense, a trial hearing of an actor or singer seeking a part, is recorded from 1881, in Scribner's Monthly,^[5][3][2] and the Oxford Dictionary of English notes that this, now the main sense, dates from the late 19th century.^[9] In psychology chromatic or coloured audition, the impression of colour produced by a sound, is recorded from 1898.^[5] The verb is a 20th-century formation: the OED finds the transitive sense, "to give someone an audition", from 1929 and the intransitive "to take part in an audition" from 1932,^[5] while Merriam-Webster gives 1931,^[4] and Barnhart and Etymonline 1935 for the transitive sense and Etymonline 1938 for the intransitive.^[3][2]

Timeline

• 1599 – the power of hearing.^[5][3]
• 1656 – the act of hearing or listening.^[5][2]
• 1762 – something heard (rare).^[5]
• 1881 – a trial performance by an actor, singer or musician.^[5][3][2]
• 1898 – coloured audition, colour perceived on hearing a sound.^[5]
• 1929 – verb, to test a performer in an audition.^[5]
• 1932 – verb, to perform in an audition.^[5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A short trial performance in which an actor, singer, dancer or musician shows their ability, in order to be chosen for a role or a place.
2. (formal) The power or sense of hearing; the act of hearing.

Verb

1. To perform in an audition: He auditioned for the youth orchestra.
2. To test a performer by means of an audition: The director auditioned forty dancers in two days.

Word family

• auditioner
• reaudition
• unauditioned
• auditionee

Related words

• audience
• auditory
• audible
• auditor
• auditorium
• audit
• audio

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.