listener
Plurallisteners
- 1A person who listens, especially to a speech, a piece of music, or a broadcast.
The podcast gained thousands of new listeners after the interview aired.
A skilled listener picks up on what a speaker leaves unsaid.
Oppositespeaker
- 2A function that runs automatically when a particular event occurs, also called an event handler.
The developer attached a click listener to the submit form.
Each listener fires only when its assigned event is triggered.
Similarhandler
Note
A programmer's term, most at home in Java. Code registers a listener with an event source, and the listener runs whenever that source emits a matching event. In Java the listener is typically an object that implements a named interface, and the dispatcher calls its methods. Other settings tend to say event handler or callback for much the same thing. The usual verbs are add, attach and register: you attach a listener to a button or a form.
- 3A person's ear.
A left hook caught him flush on the right listener, and he went down in the third round.
He pulled his wool cap down over his listeners before stepping out into the snow.
Similarear
Note
Prize-ring slang that names the ear for the job it does, built simply from listen + -er. It belongs to the boxing talk of the 1820s: the Fancy Gazette, as John Badcock gave it in his 1823 dictionary of the turf and the ring, has a fighter land a hit under his opponent's left listener. Because it is spelled exactly like the word for someone who listens, it reads as an ear only when the sentence makes a body part plain.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from the verb "listen" combined with the suffix "-er."