listener

noun

lis·​ten·​er ˈli-sᵊn-ər 

ˈlis-nər

plural listeners

: one who listens to someone or something

a radio program with many listeners

a friend who's a good listener [=who listens attentively and sympathetically]

Fanny, being always a very courteous listener, and often the only listener at hand, came in for the complaints and distresses of most of them.

—Jane Austen

The average concertgoer drifts in and out of the music, often losing the thread. The listener can't always hear the music in the music, and tends to notice only the most obvious (usually the loudest) events.

—David Schiff

Examples of listener in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Holding Absence, four actual humans who have been touring the world and releasing music since 2015 (though its current incarnation with Woodland didn’t begin until the following year), currently have 847,638 monthly listeners. —Brian Hiatt, Rolling Stone, 1 Oct. 2025

What started as a daily ritual for millions of listeners has spawned a digital empire for the sisters. —Tatiana Siegel, Variety, 1 Oct. 2025

Thus, unlike disgruntled newspaper readers, whose only resort was to write an angry letter to the editor, radio listeners could now vent their frustrations by going over the heads of a local affiliate and complaining directly to the government. —Thomas Doherty, HollywoodReporter, 30 Sep. 2025

To an older listener, her songs may sound like standards — ones that, somehow, have remained hidden to the public since the ’30s and ’40s. —Jim Harrington, Mercury News, 30 Sep. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1572, in the meaning defined above