What does listening mean?
Listening is the act of hearing what another person says with attention, understanding, and responsiveness, though it is also used more broadly for hearing music, broadcasts, or other audio. In conversation, it can imply not merely hearing the words but considering the speaker’s meaning, feelings, and intentions. Phrases such as active listening and listening skills are common in education, management, counselling, and everyday conversation. Listening can also appear before a noun: a listening audience pays attention to a performance, while a listening device detects or receives sound. Although listening may be a quiet activity, it is an active form of attention and communication, particularly when someone is trying to understand another person fully rather than simply waiting to reply. The word is standard in British, American, and other varieties of English and has no strongly regional connotations.
The act of hearing and attending to speech, music, or other sound.
"Listening without interrupting is often the most helpful response."
The noun is common both in general contexts, such as listening to music, and in the more attentive sense of listening to a person.
Attending to what is being said or heard, or serving to receive or detect sound.
"The recording won an award for best listening experience."
This use normally occurs attributively, especially in established phrases such as listening audience, listening skills, and listening device.
Rare; listening is normally used as an uncountable noun.
"The station's listenings rose sharply after the interview."
Good listening is often less about staying silent than about making space for someone else’s meaning.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does listening come from?
Listening is a gerund and participial derivative of listen. Listen comes through Middle English from Old English hlysian, meaning to hear, which was related to hlyr, meaning sound or hearing, and has cognates in other Germanic languages. The Latin root audire, meaning to hear, underlies unrelated English words such as audible, audio, audit, and obedient, although these are cognates by historical root rather than direct derivatives of listen.
Related word forms
How listening is actually used
Listening is common in both formal and informal English. In phrases such as listening to music, listening to the radio, and listening carefully, the preposition to is normally required; listening music is nonstandard in careful usage. As an attribute, listening is usually hyphenated only when it modifies a following noun rather than forming an established compound, as in a listening audience.
Easily confused with listening
Listening is the activity of hearing, attending to, or receiving audio, whereas listened is the past tense of listen.