Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage

Date: 1300-1400
Language: French
Origin: Latin audientia 'hearing', from audire; AUDIO

audience

 noun
     
au‧di‧ence S2 W2
1 [countable also + plural verb] British English a group of people who come to watch and listen to someone speaking or performing in public:
The audience began clapping and cheering.
audience of
an audience of 250 business people
One member of the audience described the opera as 'boring'.
2 [countable also + plural verb] British EnglishTCB the people who watch or listen to a particular programme, or who see or hear a particular artist's, writer's etc work:
The show attracts a regular audience of about 20 million.
target audience (=the type of people that a programme, advertisement etc is supposed to attract)
Goya was one of the first painters to look for a wider audience for his work.
The book is not intended for a purely academic audience.
3 [countable] a formal meeting with a very important person
audience with
He was granted an audience with the Pope.
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

Dictionary pictures of the day
Do you know what each of these is called?
What is the word for picture 1? What is the word for picture 2? What is the word for picture 3? What is the word for picture 4?
Click on any of the pictures above to find out what it is called.

Explore our topic dictionary

Browse the dictionary