prooflistener

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noun

One who listens, usually to a recording, for errors.

Scrabble 18

Meanings

nounprooflistener (plural prooflisteners)

plural prooflisteners · alternative proof-listener

  1. rareOne who listens, usually to a recording, for errors.

    Often a prooflistener could clearly discriminate the words after repeated listening to a passage which the transcriber had previously found unintelligible.

    1979, Hartvig Dahl, “Characteristics of the Corpus”, in Word Frequencies of Spoken American English, Essex, Conn.; Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire: Verbatim, →ISBN, page v, column 1
    2 more examples

    Wolfram Kandinsky, who does narration and voice-overs on television programs and played roles on “Radio Mystery Theater,” says: “The hard part is reading so much material without getting to rehearse it. The easy part is erasing and redoing lines you don’t think you did right.” SOMETIMES THE latter becames^([sic]) an argument between the reader and a “prooflistener.” All books are proofread.

    1979 June 11, Michael Hirsley, “Tied up in traffic? Read a book-on-tape”, in Chicago Tribune, 132nd year, number 162, Chicago, Ill., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 14, column 1

    Time and again, her skill as a proofreader and her patience as a “prooflistener” helped her husband through rocky patches in his pilgrimage with the Popes.

    2003 November 6, Stephen J. Davis, “Acknowledgments”, in The Early Coptic Papacy: The Egyptian Church and Its Leadership in Late Antiquity (The Popes of Egypt […]; 1), Cairo; New York, N.Y.: American University in Cairo Press, published 2004, →ISBN, page xvi

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

prooflistener. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/prooflistener

MLA

“prooflistener.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/prooflistener. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “prooflistener,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/prooflistener.

Source: prooflistener on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.