hearing

comparative more hearing · superlative most hearing

1. Able to hear, as opposed to deaf.

   Deaf people often must deal with hearing people.

plural hearings

1. uncountableThe sense used to perceive sound.

   My hearing isn't what it used to be, but I still heard that noise.

   Synonyms: audition

2. uncountableThe distance or physical region within which something may be heard; earshot.

   She moved out of hearing and I lost the end of the sentence.

   1 more example

   When this conversation was repeated in detail within the hearing of the young woman in question, and undoubtedly for his benefit, Mr. Trevor threw shame to the winds and scandalized the Misses Brewster then and there by proclaiming his father to have been a country storekeeper.

   1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

3. countableSomething heard; a report or piece of news.

   More evidence followed. Evidence as to the financial difficulties in which the prisoner had found himself at the end of July. Evidence as to his intrigue with Mrs. Raikes—poor Mary, that must have been bitter hearing for a woman of her pride.

   1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 159

4. countableThe act by which something is heard; the act of perceiving by sound or the auditory sense.

   To such perceivings we give names like these: seeings, hearings, smellings, chillings and burnings, pleasures and pains, desires […]

   2004, Timothy D. J. Chappell, Reading Plato's Theaetetus, page 73

5. uncountableA proceeding at which discussions are heard.

   All I want is for my views to get a fair hearing.

   1 more example

   There will be a public hearing to discuss the new traffic light.

6. countablelawA legal procedure done before a judge, without a jury, as with an evidentiary hearing.

   Next month, Clemons will be brought before a court presided over by a "special master", who will review the case one last time. The hearing will be unprecedented in its remit, but at its core will be a simple issue: should Reggie Clemons live or die?

   2012 August 21, Ed Pilkington, “Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?”, in The Guardian

7. countabledatedinformaluncountableA scolding.

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of hear