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''audit'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260320113731-00-⌔

audit - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

audit (plural audits)

  • A judicial examination.
  • An examination in general.
  • An independent review and examination of records and activities to assess the adequacy of system controls, to ensure compliance with established policies and operational procedures, and to recommend necessary changes in controls, policies, or procedures
    • ✤ *National Assembly audit *
  • The result of such an examination, or an account as adjusted by auditors; final account.
    • ✤ Yet I can make my audit up.1
  • (Scientology) Spiritual counseling, which forms the core of Dianetics.
    • ✤ [Werner Erhard said:] I got a lot of benefit from auditing. It was the fastest and deepest way to handle situations that I had yet encountered.2
    • ✤ The trainings of Landmark, Block Training and UP Hans Schuster und Partner thus display strong similarities with the self-improvement seminars of Scientology, which are incidentally called ‘auditing sessions’, a term taken from the business world.3
  • (obsolete) A general receptacle or receiver.
    • 1651–1653, Jer[emy] Taylor, ΕΝΙΑΥΤΟΣ [Eniautos]. A Course of Sermons for All the Sundays of the Year. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Richard Royston […], published 1655, →OCLC:, “A Funeral Sermon”
      • ✤ It [a little brook] paid to its common audit no more than the revenues of a little cloud.
  • (obsolete) An audience; a hearing.
    • ✤ With his Oriſons I meddle not, for hee appeals to a high Audit.4

Verb

audit (third-person singular simple present audits, present participle auditing, simple past and past participle audited)

  • (transitive) To examine and adjust (e.g. an account).
    • ✤ to audit the accounts of a treasure, or of parties who have a suit depending in court
  • (finance, business, transitive) To conduct an independent review and examination of system records and activities in order to test the adequacy and effectiveness of data security and data integrity procedures, to ensure compliance with established policy and operational procedures, and to recommend any necessary changes
  • (Scientology, transitive) To counsel spiritually.
    • ✤ In John’s case, I suspect, when he lost Diana he went back to his Scientology church to be audited.5
  • (transitive) To attend an academic class without the opportunity to receive academic credit.

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin audītus, from audiō (“to hear”). The sense of examine is because examinations were originally presented orally, and the examiner listened.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈɔːdɪt/
  • (Standard Southern British, Australian, New Zealand) IPA: /ˈoːdɪt/
  • (US)
    • (without the cot–caught merger) IPA: /ˈɔdɪt/
    • (cot–caught merger) IPA: /ˈɑdɪt/
      • Audio (California): 🔊
  • (Scotland) IPA: /ˈɔdɪt/
  • Rhymes: -ɔːdɪt
  • Hyphenation: au‧dit

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]: ↩

  2. 1978, William Warren Bartley, Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est, New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., →ISBN, pages 146–47: ↩

  3. 2007, Martin Ramstedt, “New Age and Business: Corporations as Cultic Milieus?”, in Daren Kemp, James R. Lewis, editors, Handbook of the New Age (Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion), volume 1, Leiden: BRILL, →ISBN, pages 196–197: ↩

  4. 1649, J[ohn] Milton, chapter V, in ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ [Eikonoklástēs] […], London: […] Matthew Simmons, […], →OCLC, page 49: ↩

  5. 2011, Diane Saks, Overcoming Celebrity Obsession, page 225: ↩

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Secondary

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