vidience

plural vidiences

1. rareA group of observers.

   Mr. A. J. Eickhoff has coined us a new word, Vidience, designating a body of persons who “hear” by means of sight.

   [1914 February, Petra T. Fandrem, “Exchanges”, in Silent Worker, volume XXVI, number 5, Trenton, N.J., page 97, column 1

   5 more examples

   During the season of my second visit, the receipts of Brigham’s theater averaged eight hundred dollars per night; and one evening they reached thirteen hundred dollars. Mrs. Julia Dean Cooper was filling a long star engagement at two hundred dollars per night. At first she found the audiences, or as Gail Hamilton would call them, the vidiences, curiously fresh and inexperienced.

   [1867, Albert D[eane] Richardson, chapter XXX, in Beyond the Mississippi: From the Great River to the Great Ocean. […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company. […], page 358

   There was not even a referee, no seconds, no bottle-holder—barring one of the combatants—no reporters, no audience, not even a vidience.

   1894, Kate Sanborn, “Help!”, in Abandoning an Adopted Farm, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton and Company, page 71

   It is very easy to see what a help to a vidience the caste can be, especially in some very heavy drama or costume play, which requires close attention to understand.

   1912 September, Raymond L. Schrock, “Reflections of the Critic”, in The Photoplay Magazine, volume III, number 2, Chicago, Ill.: A. H. McLaughlin, page 86, column 2

   Years ago I saw Mr. Cohan in an American-flag-song-and-dance-show called “The Yankee Prince.” I found it a colossal bore. However, the house was jammed to the last inch, and apparently the audience or vidience loved it. […] With reference to the word vidience, which, at the suggestion of Mr. John M. Shedd, I advocated in a recent number of this magazine, I am surprised to learn from the Chicago News of April 29 that “the word optience for a movie assemblage is already in general use, in the Middle West at least.” […] R. H. Pitt, editor of The Religious Herald, Richmond, Va., claims priority over Mr. John M. Shedd for the coinage of the word vidience.

   1925 August, William Lyon Phelps, “As I Like It”, in Scribner’s Magazine, volume LXXVIII, number 2, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 212

   Among the related subjects discussed were: the economic struggle of the artist for survival in a world crisis; the fight against censorship; the repression of the Negro; the freedom enjoyed by artists in the Soviet Union; the boycott of the Nazi Olympic art exhibitions; organization of artists; the social basis of art; race and art; the artist in search of a vidience; ways to reach wider publics; art museums and the living artist; present-day tendencies in American art; art in Italy and Germany under fascism; and permanent federal art projects.

   1936 June 1, “Artists Who Think”, in The Art Digest, volume X, number 17, New York, N.Y.: The Art Digest, Inc., page 39, column 2