Etymologically
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audition

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 22 October 2026 at 21:43. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ɔːˈdɪʃn̩/[1]
  • US: /ɔˈdɪʃən/, /ɑˈdɪʃən/[1]

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

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.