Listening

How to spell listening

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce listening

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does listening mean?

1. verbGiving attention to a sound or to what someone is saying, in order to hear it.
2. nounThe act or skill of attending closely to what is said or heard.

Listening in a sentence

• verb

  She was listening carefully to the recorded instructions.

• noun

  Good listening is an essential skill for any manager.

• verb

  The children kept listening for the sound of the school bell.

• noun

  The language course includes listening exercises every week.

Where does listening come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the verb 'listen', which descends from the Old English hlysnan, meaning 'to pay attention to' or 'to hear with care'. That verb belonged to a wider Germanic family connected to the Old English noun hlyst, meaning 'sense of hearing', and ultimately to an ancient root that also gave us the word 'loud'. The silent 't' in the modern spelling is the lasting trap: it crept into the word during the Middle English period through association with related forms, even though it is not pronounced, which is why writers can be tempted to drop it. The '-ing' ending is the ordinary English suffix that turns a verb into its present participle or into a gerund naming the activity itself. So 'listening' literally describes the ongoing act of attending to sound, and its spelling quietly preserves a consonant the tongue no longer says.

How the word is built

• listen (Old English hlysnan: to pay attention to sound)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)