écoutées

écoutées is the feminine plural form of the French past participle of écouter, meaning "listened to" or "heard". As a past participle, it appears in compound tenses with the auxiliary verbs avoir and être, and it also functions as an adjective requiring gender and number agreement with the noun it modifies.

With avoir as auxiliary, the past participle normally does not agree with the subject but agrees in gender and number with a preceding direct object: for example, La chanson que j'ai écoutées would be nonstandard because chanson is singular; the correct agreement example is Les chansons que j'ai écoutées ("the songs that I listened to"). With être in passive constructions or with pronominal verbs, the past participle agrees with the subject: Elles ont été écoutées ("they (f.) were listened to"); Elles se sont écoutées ("they listened to each other").

Pronunciation is /e.ku.te/, identical for singular feminine écoutée; the final -s is silent in isolation but may be pronounced as a liaison /z/ before a following vowel. As an adjective, écoutées describes items that have been listened to (e.g., chansons écoutées).

The verb écouter derives from Old French escouter, ultimately from Latin auscultare. Related forms include écouter (infinitive), écouté (masculine singular), and adjectival or nominal derivatives such as écouteur (listener, headphone).