Word Origin Atlas

Exact historical dictionary sense

Audience in Webster's 1913 dictionary

The 1913 record labels audience as noun. Its source-bounded etymology and selected historical definition appear below.

WEBSTER 1913noun
Audience

[F. audience, L. audientia, fr. audire to hear. See Audible, a.]

Cross-verified historical sense
The source text may be outdated. The page preserves that historical boundary.
Cross-verified 1913 record
Headwordaudience
Part of speechnoun
Historical etymology[F. audience, L. audientia, fr. audire to hear. See Audible, a.]
Selected historical definitionThe act of hearing; attention to sounds.
Signed record IDwebster1913-audience-noun-28d1a31414e6
Source locatorCIDE.A, paragraph 14046; Gutenberg eBook 660
Edition-scoped answerNot earliest-attestation proofNot modern consensus
Independent historical textProject Gutenberg section 660Signed structural record sourceGNU GCIDE 0.54 archive
Quick answer

In Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), "audience" is labeled noun. Its etymology is recorded as: "[F. audience, L. audientia, fr. audire to hear. See Audible, a.]" The selected historical definition says: "The act of hearing; attention to sounds."

Project Gutenberg Webster 1913 plus signed GNU GCIDE 0.54 Exact cross-verified historical record reviewed 2026-10-04

What this answer proves

One named sense in one historical dictionary edition.

The answer reports the selected headword, part of speech, etymology, definition, and source locator as transcribed in the cross-verified 1913 record.

Evidence boundaryIt does not establish the earliest attestation or a complete borrowing chain.It does not claim current scholarly consensus or a modern dictionary definition.Historical dictionary text may be obsolete, incomplete, inaccurate, or offensive by modern standards.

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