audient

1. not comparableListening, paying attention.First known use mid 16th c.

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

   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, 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

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   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.)

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

   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.

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

   Synonyms: attentive, reckful

plural audients

1. uncommonA hearer; a member of an audience.

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

   1612–1620, [Miguel de Cervantes], “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 Thomas Shelton, transl., The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-errant Don-Quixote of the Mancha. […], London: […] William Stansby, for Ed[ward] Blount and W. Barret, →OCLC, part 1, page 300

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   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.

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

   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’.)

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

   Fifty-five minutes later, the audience demanded encores and were rewarded with a little more Mario and the mellow tones of Jimmy Smith and Reuben Wilson. ‘I loved it’, said one audient, as she filed out of the auditorium at the end of the show. ‘Where did you get the idea?’

   2019, Kenneth B. McAlpine, “Fakebit, Fans, and 8-Bit Covers”, in Bits and Pieces: A History of Chiptunes, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 223

   I came to understand that the performance experience is a process whereby we forge an adaptable dialogue between audient and performer, a communal conversation: “in performance, the audience is present and interacting with the creators during the creative process itself.[…]” (Sawyer 2006, 7). […] A truly remarkable work, tend is a piece that I hope one day to experience as an audient. […] In fully acknowledging the audient as an active participant it explores the beauty of the human form through human interactions and urges us all to search for common ground and empathy.

   2021, Winnie Huang, “The Pragmatic Musical-Gestural Performer”, in William Brooks, editor, Experience Music Experiment: Pragmatism and Artistic Research (Orpheus Institute Series), Leuven: Leuven University Press, →ISBN, part 1 (Doing), page 52

2. obsoletespecificallyA catechumen (“convert to Christianity under instruction before baptism”) in the early Christian Church.

   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.

   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, pages 258–259

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   […] 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.

   [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