Forms: 4–6 audytour(e, 4–7 -itour, 5 -ytor, awdyter, 5– auditor. [a. AF. auditour = F. auditeur (substituted for OF. oeor), ad. L. audītor, f. audīre to hear: see -OR.]
1. A hearer, listener; one of an audience.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Sompn. T., 229. Workers of Goddes word, not auditours.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., III. i. 81. What, a Play toward? Ile be an auditor.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., Democr. 58. No parish to contain above a thousand auditors.
1752. Johnson, Rambl., 195, ¶ 1. He that long delays a story, and suffers his auditor to torment himself with expectation.
1863. Mary Howitt, trans. F. Bremer’s Greece, I. viii. 264. The galleries were … filled with auditors.
2. One who learns by oral instruction; an attendant on lectures, a disciple; in Eccl. Hist. a catechumen; cf. AUDIENT sb.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 425/1. He made al the audytours of the cristen feyth to be put to deth.
1589. Pasquil’s Ret., B iiij. As the Auditors of the Philosophers did in times past.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., I/326. Bodley … was an auditor of Chevalerius in Hebrew.
1851. Torrey, Neander’s Ch. Hist., I. 502. The great mass, consisting of the exoterics, were to constitute the Auditors.
3. (From the fact that accounts were formerly vouched for orally) An official whose duty it is to receive and examine accounts of money in the hands of others, who verifies them by reference to vouchers, and has power to disallow improper charges.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XIX. 458. Of my reue to take Al þat myne auditour, or elles my stuwarde Conseilleth me by her acounte.
1469. J. Paston, in Lett., 631, II. 388. Send downe … to some awdyter, to take acomptys of Dawbneys byllys.
1557. Ord. Hospitalls, B iv b. There shall also be chosen Auditors generall of the Accompts.
1607. Shaks., Timon, II. ii. 165. Call me before th’ exactest Auditors, And set me on the proofe.
1832. Babbage, Econ. Manuf., xxxi. 313. The public ought to have auditors on their part, and the accounts should be annually published.
fig. 1393. Gower, Conf., II. 191. Upon thilke ende of our accompte, Which Crist him self is auditour.
1533. More, Apol., i. Wks. 845/2. No such man wil ouer me be so sore an auditour … as to charge me with any great losse.
4. One who listens in a judicial capacity and tries cases brought before him for hearing; spec. the official presiding in the archbishop’s Audience Court (see AUDIENCE 3).
1640. Bp. Reynolds, Passions, vi. 42. In matter of Action, and of Iudicature, Affection in some sort is an Auditor or Iudge.
1706. Lond. Gaz., No. 4230/1. Signior Caprara, one of the Auditors de Rota.
1726. Ayliffe, Parerg., 192. The Auditor, or Official of Causes and Matters in the Court of Audience of Canterbury.
