audIRE

Audire is a Latin verb meaning to hear or to listen. It is a fourth-conjugation verb and has the principal parts audio, audire, audivi, auditum. Used with a direct object in the accusative, it covers both literal hearing and more figurative “listening.”

In the present active indicative, audire appears as audio, audis, audit, audimus, auditis, audiunt. The imperfect active is audiebam, audiebas, audiebat, audiebamus, audiebatis, audiebant; the future active is audiam, audies, audiet, audiemus, audietis, audient. The present active subjunctive is audiam, audias, audiat, audiamus, audiatis, audiant, and the imperfect subjunctive is audirem, audires, audiret, audiremus, audiretis, audirent. The imperative forms are audi (singular) and audite (plural).

The verb also has a passive voice. Present passive indicative forms are audior, audiris, auditur, audimur, audimini, audiuntur. The supine is auditum, and the participle is auditus, used to form passive periphrastics and adjectives such as auditum memoriae.

Derived terms in English come from the same root, including audible, audience, auditory, audition, and auditorium.

In classical Latin, audire appears frequently to describe hearing in everyday, rhetorical, and literary contexts. It also serves as the source for many Latin phrases and compounds, illustrating how the sense of hearing underpins a broad range of semantic uses.