ohörbar

ohörbar is an adjective in German that is sometimes used to mean “audible” or “able to be heard.” In standard usage, the common term is hörbar; ohörbar is seldom documented in major dictionaries and is generally considered nonstandard, archaic, or dialectal. Because of its rarity, language resources typically treat it as a stylistic variant rather than a normal synonym.

The etymology of ohörbar is unclear. It is formed from hören with the suffix -bar, preceded by the vowel o-, a combination that is not productive in modern German. Some linguists regard it as an occasional historical or regional variant, while others view it as a misformation or playful coinage.

In contemporary writing, ohörbar appears mainly in poetic, experimental, or humorous contexts and is not recommended for formal prose. For acoustic descriptions, speakers and writers normally use hörbar or more precise phrases such as im hörbaren Bereich, akustisch hörbar, or nicht mehr hörbar for inaudible cases.

See also: Hörbarkeit, Hörschwelle, Nicht hörbar. The term is distinct from clearly established opposites such as nicht hörbar (inaudible) and from related concepts in acoustics and linguistics that describe perceptibility and auditory thresholds.