Auditory

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈɔː.dɪ.tə.ɹi/

Definitions

1. Relating to the sense of hearing or the organs involved in perceiving sound
2. Concerning the processes, organs, and sensations associated with hearing, along with the perception of sound experiences
3. Pertaining to the faculty or mechanism of hearing sound

Etymology: Auditory is a plain Latin-built formation, and its story is mostly one of shifting from a place to a sense. The Latin "audītōrium" meant "the place where something is heard" or "the assembled hearers," so the noun first named the listening space itself, the hall or the audience. That noun passed into English as "auditorium," while the adjective "audītōrius," meaning "pertaining to a hearer or hearing," gave us the adjective we use today. The adjective is built from "audiō," "to hear," plus "-tōrius," an adjectival suffix meaning roughly "relating to," the same ending found in words like "advisory" and "preparatory." English borrowed it directly from Latin, so the word arrived with its classical meaning intact and simply describes anything connected with the sense of hearing.

Synonyms: hearing, acoustic

Antonyms: non-auditory