audient

Borrowed from Latin audientem, accusative singular of audiēns (“hearing, listening; attending, paying attention to”) (or directly from audiēns), the present active participle of audiō (“to hear, listen to; to attend, pay attention to”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ewis (“clearly, manifestly”) (from *h₂ew- (“to perceive, see”)) + *dʰh₁-ye/o- (“to render”).

The noun may be borrowed from Late Latin audiēns (“catechumen”), from the participle audiēns.[1]

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɔː.dɪ.ənt/
• Hyphenation: au‧di‧ent

audient (not comparable)

1. Listening, paying attention. [from mid 16th c.]

   Synonyms: attentive, reckful (uncommon)

   • 1849, James Brown, An English Grammar, in Three Books. […], book II, Philadelphia, Pa.: Published by John T. Lange, […], OCLC 973883684, part II, lesson II, section 2 (The Pronoun Denomination), footnote, page 113:

     The prosochist is that person whom the noun itself designates by means of an audient intonation, an audient indication, or an audient comma, as the paricular individual to whose notice the par-e-theme presents the different objects mntioned, or implied, in the sentence; as, Master, I have brought unto thee my son. (Master.)

   • 1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Ninth Book”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, OCLC 1000396166, page 398:

     And, as we sate, we felt the old earth spin, / And all the starry turbulence of worlds / Swing round us in their audient circles, till / If that same golden moon were overhead / Or if beneath our feet, we did not know.

   • 1920 November, H[oward] P[hillips] Lovecraft, “Nyarlathotep”, in The United Amateur, volume 20, number 2, Spokane, Wash.: Published for the United Amateur Press Association by E. B. Ault, OCLC 11254435, page 19; republished in The Doom that Came to Sarnath, New York, N.Y.: Del Rey Books, Ballantine Books, February 1971 (May 1991 printing), →ISBN, page 57:

     Nyarlathotep … the crawling chaos … I am the last … I will tell the audient void …

• audiently

audient (plural audients)

1. (obsolete) A hearer.
   • 1612, [Miguel de Cervantes]; Thomas Shelton, transl., “Which Treates of the Discretion of the Beautifull Dorotea, and the Artificiall Manner Used to Disswade the Amorous Knight from Continuing His Penance: And How He was Gotten Away; with Many Other Delightfull and Pleasant Occurrences”, in The History of the Valorovs and Wittie Knight-errant Don-Qvixote of the Mancha. […], London: Printed by William Stansby, for Ed[ward] Blount and W. Barret, OCLC 84747867, part 1, page 300:

     The audients of her ſad ſtorie, felt great motions both of pitie and admiration for her miſfortunes: […]

   • c. 1638, Richard Brome, The Antipodes: […], London: Printed by I[ohn] Okes, for Francis Constable, […], published 1640, OCLC 1039952122; republished in The Dramatic Works of Richard Brome Containing Fifteen Comedies Now First Collected in Three Volumes, volume III, London: John Pearson […], 1873, OCLC 27955200, Act II, scene ii, page 259:

     Let me not ſee you act now, / In your Scholaſticke way, you brought to towne wi'yee, / With ſee ſaw ſacke a downe, like a Sawyer; / Nor in a Comicke Scene, play Hercules furens, / Tearing your throat to ſplit the Audients eares.

   • 2011, Eugene Eoyang, “The Myth of Unity and Coherence in Narrative: An Intercultural Perspective”, in Steven Shankman and Amiya Dev, editor, Epic and Other Higher Narratives: Essays in Intercultural Studies, Noida, National Capital Region, India: Longman, published by Dorling Kindersley (India), →ISBN, page 54:

     In each case, an individual author confronts an individual responder, an ‘audient’, with a single artistic construct. (Even in co-written books, there is a unified authorship, and even in communal play-going, the experience involves a discrete work presented in a discrete form to a discrete ‘audient’.)

2. (obsolete, specifically) A catechumen (“convert to Christianity under instruction before baptism”) in the early Christian Church.
   • 1560, Thomas Becon [i.e., Thomas Beccon], “The Fifth Part of the Catechism. Of the Sacraments. [Of the Lord’s Supper]”, in John Ayre, editor, The Catechism of Thomas Becon, S.T.P. […] (Parker Society for the Publication of the Works of the Fathers and Early Writers of the Reformed English Church; 3), Cambridge: Printed at the University Press, published 1844, OCLC 56340478, pages 258–259:

     This aforesaid doctor [John Chrysostom] in divers places of his writings both sharply and grievously reproveth his audients for their slack coming unto the Lord's table, and exhorteth them many times in the year, yea, daily (if they have pure minds) to come unto the holy communion.

   • [1591?, Jeremias Bastingius, “[The Preface to the Catechisme]”, in An Exposition or Commentarie vpon the Catechisme of Christian Religion […], Cambridge: Printed by Iohn Legatt. […], OCLC 837839124:

     […] And they were called Catechumeni, who were vnder their inſtruction, and had not yet profited ſo farre, that they might be admitted to receiue the Sacraments. S. Ciprian calleth theſe Audientes, that is, hearers, and the Catechiſt, Doctorem Audientium, that is, the teacher of the hearers.]

• audient in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• edutain

audient

1. third-person plural future active indicative of audiō