Primary
''auditor'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904134559-00-⌔
auditor - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Noun
auditor (plural auditors)
- One who audits bookkeeping accounts.
- In many jurisdictions, an elected or appointed public official in charge of the public accounts; a comptroller.
- One who audits an academic course; who attends the lectures but does not earn academic credit.
- (rare) One who listens, typically as a member of an audience.
- ✤ There is another of better notice, and whispered through the world with some attention; credulous and vulgar auditors readily believing it, and more judicious and distinctive heads not altogether rejecting it.1
- ✤ Thus (as you will see with half an eye, my wise little auditors) these good old dames had fallen into a strange perplexity.2
- ✤ Sampson’s tongue was still flying with rapidity, as if his auditors had not been void of a number, while Mr. Alboni and Natalie were holding a consultation aside.3
- ✤ As we crossed the hall the telephone-bell rang, and we were the involuntary auditors of Professor Challenger’s end of the ensuing dialogue.4
- (Scientology) One trained to perform spiritual guidance procedures.
Etymology
From Anglo-Norman auditour, from Latin audītor (“hearer, auditor”).
Pronunciation
Printed 2026-09-04.
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Link to original Footnotes
1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC: ↩
1851 June–July (date written), Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Gorgon’s Head”, in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, published November 1851 (indicated as 1852), →OCLC, page 32: ↩
1859, Ferna Vale, Natalie; or, A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds: ↩
1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC: ↩
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