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Sense of hearing   /sɛns əv hˈɪrɪŋ/   Listen
Sense of hearing

noun
1.
The ability to hear; the auditory faculty.  Synonyms: audition, auditory modality, auditory sense, hearing.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Sense of hearing" Quotes from Famous Books



... Bible verses, was forest freedom for the remainder of the forenoon. It was while he was in the midst of the Beatitudes that he heard the low rumble of the coming train, and it was only by resolutely ignoring the sense of hearing that he was enabled ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... heaven, hearing her speak in this strain, Arjuna was overcome with bashfulness. And shutting his ears with his hands, he said, 'O blessed lady, fie on my sense of hearing, when thou speakest thus to me. For, O thou of beautiful face, thou art certainly equal in my estimation unto the wife of a superior. Even as Kunti here even this is my wish, and I have cherished it ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... was removed by his sense of hearing. Without the intervention of the dwelling to obstruct the sound, he caught the faint, rhythmic beating of the earth, barely audible and gradually growing fainter in the distance. It was just such a sound as is made by a horse going ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis

... wife, loud enough to be heard by both the Admiral and Mildred, and yet in a tone so smothered, as to elude the obtuse sense of hearing, that long excess had left her husband. When this expressive word had broken out of her very heart, however, she succeeded in suppressing her voice, and sinking into a chair, concealed her face ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... doubt, whether to enter the room, or to wait outside until she left Browndown to return to the rectory—when Lucilla's keen sense of hearing decided the question which I had been unable to settle for myself. The door of the room opened; and ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... apprised of the approach of danger by this means, but when scattered in the forest, and dispersed out of range of sight, they are enabled by it to reassemble with rapidity and adopt precautions for their common safety. The same necessity is met by a delicate sense of hearing, and the use of a variety of noises or calls, by means of which elephants succeed in communicating with each other upon all emergencies. "The sounds which they utter have been described by the African hunters as of three kinds: the first, which is very shrill, ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... the camels and were glad to rest under the shade we had made with boughs. Our rest lasted three days to allow Prempeh, who was very poorly, to recover. The flies, as usual, worried us unmercifully, but I was so thankful to regain once more my sense of hearing that I rather enjoyed their buzzing. I had for some weeks been so deaf that unless I had my attention fixed on something, I could not hear at all. I must have been a great bore to my companions very often, for ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... two senses most continually employed and most important may illustrate the way in which I should exercise the other senses. Sight and touch deal alike with bodies at rest and bodies in motion. But as only the vibration of the air can arouse the sense of hearing, noise or sound can be made only by a body in motion. If everything were at rest, we could not hear at all. At night, when we move only as we choose, we have nothing to fear except from other bodies in motion. We therefore need ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... Ambrosio listened with delight: Never had He heard a voice more harmonious; and He wondered how such heavenly sounds could be produced by any but Angels. But though He indulged the sense of hearing, a single look convinced him that He must not trust to that of sight. The Songstress sat at a little distance from his Bed. The attitude in which She bent over her harp, was easy and graceful: Her Cowl had fallen backwarder than usual: Two coral lips were visible, ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... long a list as possible (up to thirty) of words that appeal to the sense of sight (especially color words and motion words), to the sense of hearing, of smell, of taste, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... up and down the road told him his foes were gone. His incredible sense of hearing registered the far-off pad-pad-pad of fast-retreating human feet, and showed him the course the two men were taking. He would have liked to give chase. It had been a good fight—lively and exciting withal—and Chum wished he might carry it into the ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune

... are gifted in the sense of touch above their fellows, who can judge of the quality of goods in the dark. There are others blest with penetrating eyesight. Others with a sense of hearing most acute. Also those with nice discriminating sense of taste and smell. These distinctions for a long time were regarded as the five senses of man, and he was believed to have only those five avenues of perception. Phrenology, however, subdivides these and adds others, ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... manifests sound only in the ear-drum, as it is only there that it shows itself as a sense-organ and manifests such sounds as the man deserves to hear by reason of his merit and demerit. Thus a deaf man though he has the akas'a as his sense of hearing, cannot hear on account of his demerit which impedes the faculty of that sense organ [Footnote ref 3]. In addition to these they admitted the existence of time (kala) as extending from the past through the ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... a highly-trained sense of hearing. You and I, of course, possess pretty good ears for ordinary purposes. We can catch as soon as anyone else that muffled midnight hum, as of a distant threshing-machine beneath a blanket, which advertises the approach of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various

... expectation, was one of the most disquieting of my life. As soon as the ship was secured, and there no longer remained anything to do, the stillness of death reigned among us; the faculties of every man and boy appearing to be absorbed in the single sense of hearing—the best, and indeed the only, means we then possessed of judging of our situation. It was now apparent that we were near some place or places where the surf was breaking on land; and the hollow, not-to-be-mistaken bellowings of the element, too ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... another place, to keep away caps from the child's head, if duly attended to, is one means of perfecting, or at least of preserving, the sense of hearing. For caps, by the heat they produce to a part which cannot safely endure an increase of temperature, greatly expose children to catarrhal affections; and many a catarrh has laid the foundation for dulness of hearing, if ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... as before. For it is well known that the sense of smell is specially effective in awakening memories, and that in general it does not require much to rouse a train of ideas. And I may say, in passing, that the sense of sight is connected with the understanding,[1] the sense of hearing with the reason,[2] and, as we see in the present case, the sense of smell with the memory. Touch and Taste are more material and dependent upon contact. They ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer

... decorative colours have arisen in some other way? Why should the eye be less sensitive to SPECIFICALLY MALE colours and other VISIBLE signs ENTICING TO THE FEMALE, than the olfactory sense to specifically male odours, or the sense of hearing to specifically male sounds? Moreover, the decorative feathers of birds are almost always spread out and displayed before the female during courtship. I have elsewhere ("The Evolution Theory", London, 1904, I. page 219.) pointed out that decorative colouring ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... sentry, and as he pulled himself up the bank he observed a couple of long wooden huts, obviously some kind of billets. These were on the near side of the stream, about a dozen yards from the bridge. A door stood open and a light showed in it, and from within came the sound of voices.... Peter had a sense of hearing like a wild animal, and he could detect even from the confused gabble ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... I guessed, about ten at night. The first of my senses which came into play after this last bout was that of hearing. All at once I could hear; and it was a real exercise of the sense of hearing. I could hear the silence in the gallery after the din which for hours had stunned me. At last these words of my uncle's came to ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... me that an hour had passed, during which I stood behind the natural breastwork of a stone upon which my rifle rested, gazing straight away up the pass, and straining my sense of hearing to catch something to suggest that the enemy was in motion; but there was not a sound in the grim and desolate gap between the hills, and my beating heart sank lower and lower as I glanced back at Joeboy, ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... conveying a prejudice. Warts? Well, there, at any rate, we have the advantage of old Noll." The Collector, whose sense of hearing was acute and fastidious, broke off with a sharp arching of the eyebrows and a glance up at the ceiling, or rather (since ceiling there was none) at the oaken beams which supported the floor overhead. "Manasseh," ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... weak to move, to speak, to open my eyes, to exert in the smallest degree any one faculty, bodily or mental, that I possessed. The first sense of which I regained the use, was the sense of hearing; and the first sound that I recognised, was of a light footstep which mysteriously approached, paused, and then retired again gently outside my door. The hearing of this sound was my first pleasure, the waiting for its repetition my first source of happy ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... she answered, in low musical accents, that carried to his sense of hearing a suggestion, of something ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... the consulting-room suspect him? or did Thomas's shoes creak, and was her sense of hearing unusually keen? Whatever the explanation may be, the event that actually happened was beyond all doubt. Exactly as Doctor Wybrow passed his consulting-room, the door opened—the lady appeared on the threshold—and laid her ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... bramble so near together that the area covered by the buzzing sound measured about two hundred yards across. This most singular sound (for a warbler to make) is certainly not ventriloquial, although if one comes to it with the sense of hearing disorganized by town noises or unpractised, one is at a loss to determine the exact spot it comes from, or even to know from which side it comes. While emitting its prolonged sound the bird is so absorbed in its own performance that it is not easily alarmed, and will sometimes ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... as mere instruments on which I play as I please, but never can they bear noble testimony to my inner and outward energies, or feel true sympathy with me; I value them only in so far as their services deserve. Oh! how happy should I now be, had I my full sense of hearing; I would then hasten to you; whereas, as it is, I must withdraw from everything. My best years will thus pass away, without effecting what my talents and powers might have enabled me to perform. How melancholy is the resignation in which I must take refuge! I had determined to rise superior ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace

... the Seer must have fared badly," said the second brother; "but the Hearer may have better fortune." For this one possessed the sense of hearing in an eminent degree: he could hear the grass grow, so quick was ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... have been well after midnight when a low booming sound drew my attention; but at first the sense of hearing was so strained that it was impossible exactly to locate it, and I imagined it was the thunder of big guns far out at sea carried to us by the rising wind. Then Maloney, catching hold of my arm and leaning forward, somehow brought the true relation, and I realised the next second ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... a very clear idea as to the shape and dimensions of a room. All this information is conveyed to the normal child through the eyes. Dr. Illingworth, a noted educator of the blind in England, says: "Of course, there is no doubt that blindness tends to a higher and more perfect development of the sense of hearing, even in the uneducated, on the same principle that Nature almost always comes to the aid of her children in providing protective agencies of one kind or another, even in the very lowest organisms, ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley

... Loring's sight was impaired, his locomotion slow, and his left hand and arm yet helpless, his sense of hearing was acute enough to hear the words even across Monroe's conversation, for his sunken eyes lit up as he twisted his head towards ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... he detected a cerebral centre, a nervous centre, and a centre for aerating the blood—the first two so perfectly complementary that in the latter years of his life he came to a conviction that the sense of hearing is not absolutely necessary for hearing, nor the sense of sight for seeing, and that the solar plexus could supply their place without any possibility of doubt—Desplein, thus finding two souls in man, confirmed his atheism by this fact, though it is ...
— The Atheist's Mass • Honore de Balzac

... with the meaning of it all—the night—the silence—the flight—and the wonderful Indian stealing with the slow inevitableness of doom upon another sentinel. An hour passed and Gale seemed to have become deadened to all sense of hearing. There were no more sounds in the world. The desert was as silent as it was black. Yet again came that strange change in the tensity of Gale's ear-strain, a check, a break, a vibration—and this time the sound ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... different. The first disadvantage under which the deaf mute labors is the limited extent to which his mental powers have been developed. This deficiency is attributable to two causes—his deprivation of the immense amount of information to be gained by the sense of hearing, and his want of language. Before an infant, one possessed of all its faculties, has acquired at least an understanding of articulate language, it has but vague and feeble ideas. No clear, distinct conception is shaped in its mind. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... defends and covers them, called the external ears. In water-animals the latter are wanting; sound, in them, being transmitted merely through orifices in the head, which have the name of auditory-holes. The most defenceless animals are extremely delicate in the sense of hearing, as are likewise most beasts of prey. Most of the mammiferous animals walk on four feet, which, at the extremities, are usually divided into toes or fingers. In some, however, the feet end in a single corneous substance called a hoof. The toes of a few end in broad, flat nails, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... distinct among themselves, Venus and Mercury joining in one effort. In that number is the secret of all human affairs. Learned men have made their way to heaven by imitating this music; as have others also by the excellence of their studies. Filled with this sound the sense of hearing has failed among men. What sense is duller? It is as when the Nile falls down to her cataracts, and the nations around, astonished by ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... 343 U.S. 451 (1952). The decision overruled the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Here Judge Edgerton, speaking for himself and two associates, said: "Exploitation of this audience through assault on the unavertible sense of hearing is a new phenomenon. It raises 'issues that were not implied in the means of communication known or contemplated by Franklin and Jefferson and Madison.' But the Bill of Rights, as appellants say in their brief, can keep up with anything an advertising man or an electronics engineer ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... that now I am safe," he thought. His fine ear could detect the faintly accentuated murmurs of the current breaking against the point of the island, and he forgot himself in listening to them with interest. But even to his acute sense of hearing ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... a voice soft and sweet as a child's, and I concluded the speaker was a doctor. Raoul made some reply, but I could not understand his words, and gradually my sense of hearing failed altogether. For weeks I lay hovering between life and death, and when at length I was able to look about me and realise something of what went on, I was painfully ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... afforded us a shelter from the direct violence of the wind, the bush and trees growing so thickly right down to the water's edge that close inshore we were completely becalmed; and, thus sheltered, our sense of hearing helped us somewhat despite the deep roar of the gale overhead, while we quickly caught the knack of steering along the outer edge of the narrow belt of calm, in this way avoiding to a great extent the difficulties ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... come the Sirens, whom Ulysses will have to meet again, as he has often met them before. Indeed Circe herself was once a Siren, a charmer through the senses. The present Sirens are singers, and entice to destruction through the sense of hearing, inasmuch as "heaps of bones lie about them," evidently the skeletons of persons who have perished through their seductive song. Pass them the man must; what is to be done? He will have somehow to guard against his sensuous nature and keep it from destroying itself. Yet ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... farther south and was horribly afraid of hearing a warning bark, but nothing broke the silence and he supposed that Clarke's friends were unable to find food enough for sledge-teams. This was reassuring, because the odds against him were heavy enough, knowing, as he did, that the Indian's sense of hearing is remarkably keen. ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... creatures about him. Man, himself the most secret, the most cunning, the most deadly, and, if truth must be told, the most bloodthirsty, for he kills too often for the love of killing, is the most helpless in the dark. His sense of hearing, of sight, and of smell, fail him—thanks to a wise provision of Nature in the interests of her other children—for if man had the eyes of a cat, the nose of a wolf, and the hearing of a deer, he would have cleared the earth of its creatures, who would ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... the big brown owl from the beech-wood across the valley. In the woodlands the greatest expert on the ways of voles was the brown owl. His noiseless wings never gave the slightest alarm, and never interfered with his sense of hearing—so acute that the faint rustle of a leaf or a grass-blade brought him, like a bolt, from the sky, to hover close to the earth, eager, inquisitive, merciless, till a movement on the part of his quarry ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... to the actual chase, some hounds will show great ardour at first starting, but presently give up from weakness of spirit. Others will run in too hastily (25) and then balk; and go hopelessly astray, as if they had lost the sense of hearing altogether. ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon

... The sense of hearing opens to us a wide field of pleasure, and though it is less extensive in its range than that of sight, yet it frequently surmounts obstacles that are impervious to the eye, and communicates information of the ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... unusual amount of activity, from which arises skill and dexterity, and by which the loss of the other sense is in some measure alleviated, but not supplied. No additional power is given to the eye after the loss of the sense of hearing other than it might have acquired with the same amount of practice while both faculties were active. The fact, however, that the senses, in performing their proper functions, are not overtaxed, and are therefore, in cases of emergency, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... Trent had resigned herself to a quiet acceptance of the worst, and sat for hours at a time rigidly motionless, with only her sense of hearing intensely alert, strained to its utmost for whatever news might come. As each party came back to consult the others, and for the refreshment that human nature could no longer do without, it reported to the waiting woman, who received the message in silence, yet with ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... to-day as if the eyes were about to open. The ears are still closed, and there is no evidence of a sense of hearing. They squeaked considerably when in the nest, but not at all when I took them out to note their development. The mother stays outside of the nest box much of the time now, probably to prevent the young ones ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... Mr. Goodchild tried to rise and cry out. But, the two fiery lines extending from the old man's eyes to his own, kept him down, and he could not utter a sound. His sense of hearing, however, was acute, and he could hear the clock strike Two. No sooner had he heard the clock strike Two, than he saw ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens

... a man learn any kind of knowledge which is imparted by word of mouth if he is wholly deprived of the sense of hearing? ...
— Eryxias • An Imitator of Plato

... hesitating knock of the bronze ring on the outer door reached his ear. The chamber, which he occupied, was far removed from the vestibule, divided from it by the whole length of the atrium, and fauces; yet so still was the interior of the house, and so inordinately sharpened was his sense of hearing by anxiety and apprehension, that he recognized the sound instantly, and started to his feet, fearing he knew ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... in favor of the many automatic and mechanical methods of producing touch. They are all dangerous to my mind. There is only one real way of teaching, and that is through the sense of hearing of the pupil. The teacher should go to the piano and produce the desired tonal effect, and the pupil should listen and watch the teacher. Then the pupil should be instructed to secure a similar result, and the teacher ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke

... and comrades who are worthy, See and look with all your eyesight, Listen with your sense of hearing, Gather with your apprehension— Bow your heads, O trees, and hearken. Hush thy rustling, corn, and listen; Turn thine ear and give attention; Ripples of the running water, Pause a moment in your channels— Here I ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock

... monkey sleeping on the bough of a tree! He climbs up so silently that the monkey does not awake. At least, those monkeys that do not cultivate the keenest sense of hearing, even in their sleep, get eaten by the jaguar. But a jaguar that is clumsy in his movements awakes the sleeping monkey—and then that jaguar has to go without his dinner. So, again, life is like a competition or trial in the jungle, as I have told you in Book I, pages ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh

... and is always on the alert. Its sense of hearing, of smell, and of sight is very acute, and the most skillful hunter will sometimes search the mountain pastures for days without securing his game. When the troop is grazing, a sentinel is always appointed, who stands on the watch sniffing the air. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... have been intervals in which his sense of hearing left him, for it was only now that he became conscious that somebody was calling to him from the ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... sense of hearing enabled the rangers to locate the signal at less than a quarter of a mile in front and quite close to the Ohio. From the first time it was heard, no more than half an hour before, it held the same relative distance from the river, ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis

... obscuring everything in line of vision. He would call his nephew. Vainly he attempted to shout the word "Douglas," but to no avail. Where was his mouth? It seemed as if he had none. Was it all delirium? The strange silence—perhaps he had lost his sense of hearing along with his ability to speak—and he could see nothing distinctly. The mist had transferred itself into a confused jumble of indistinct objects, some of ...
— The Jameson Satellite • Neil Ronald Jones

... you! it is very beautiful—very touching, too!" Speaking calmly, and slacking rein, so that the grating of the wheels among the stems of the scarlet lychnis, that grew in immense patches on our road, might not disturb his sense of hearing, which, by-the-way, was exquisitely ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... returned, the man said, when young Latimer reached the home the lawyer had made for them both. He did not know what to argue from this, but determined to sit up and wait, and so sat smoking before the fire and listening with his sense of hearing on a strain for the first ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... 'The conditions are the Indriyas and the Visayas, etc.' Indriyas are organs of sense, and Visayas are objects on which the sense acts. Five Vijnyanas are—(1) The sense of sight, (2) the sense of hearing, (3) the sense of smell, (4) the sense of taste, ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... away into the darkness, and the party sat straining their sense of hearing to the utmost, making out plainly enough now the dull sound of trampling hoofs, the jingling of trappings, and every now and then an angry snort or squeal as some ill-tempered beast resented the too near approach of one of ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... Shaw takes count of. There is a great living writer who has brought to bear on human problems as consistent a logic as Mr. Shaw's, together with something which Mr. Shaw disdains. Mr. Shaw's logic is sterile, because it is without sense of touch, sense of sight, or sense of hearing; once set going it is warranted to go straight, and to go through every obstacle. Tolstoi's logic is fruitful, because it allows for human weakness, because it understands, and because to understand is, ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... winds, as they came rushing down the sides of the Alps, in their first descent into the basin of the Leman. As the sight grew useless, except as it might study the dark omens of the impending vault, the sense of hearing became doubly acute, and it had been a powerful agent in heightening the vague but acute apprehensions of the travellers. The rushes of the wind, which at first were broken, at intervals resembling the roar of a chimney-top in a gale, had soon reached ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... birds of gaudy plumage, and other winged creatures, whose forms were as novel as the combinations of colours which marked their bodies. They were the scene of a perpetual whirl and flutter of wings, and before they betrayed themselves to the sight their locality could be detected by the sense of hearing from the never-ceasing hum and chirp of the insects and the calls of the birds which frequented them. They were the scenes of an eager, busy, active life; whilst in the twilight depths of the forest everything was deathlike, everything was still—the very air was motionless, not a leaf ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... of voice, at once astonishing and delightful—"All in the downs the fleet lay moored;" and then followed the strain of love, manly love and constancy, in the beautiful language of Gay, and in tones so rich, so clear, so sweet! every faculty was absorbed in the sense of hearing! the hair seemed to rise, the flesh to stir! the silence of the audience was holy—they durst not, they could not, even applaud that which so enchanted them, for fear of losing a note—I really think I could have struck ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various

... Beliefs Concerning the Influence of Music in Morals, Education and Medicine. Its Therapeutic Uses. Significance of the Romantic Interest in Music at Puberty. Men Comparatively Insusceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music. Rarity of Sexual Perversions on the Basis of the Sense of Hearing. The Part of Music in Primitive Human Courtship. Women Notably Susceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... tones which are flung around like notes from a Stroem Karl's magic harp, or the alluring song of a Lorelei, to the thunder of a Niagara, nature's diapason sounding the lowest note that mortal ears can catch, appeal to the sense of hearing—and underlying all is a vague sense of irresistible power. How touching, how profoundly true, the story in "Eckehard" of the little lad and his sister who wandered off until they came to the Rheinfal. There, gazing at the full sweep of that magnificent fall the ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... each other, from the immense crowd of different, and sometimes contradictory, ideas, that rank vulgarly under the standard of beauty. And of these it is my intention to mark such only of the leading points as show the conformity of the sense of hearing with the other senses, in the article ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... Miss Miggs's sense of hearing, however, having as sharp an edge as her temper, and being of the same snappish and suspicious kind, very soon informed her that the footsteps passed her door, and appeared to have some object quite separate and disconnected from herself. At this discovery ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... had salved his conscience by endeavoring to read a technical letter on mining affairs, would be less than human if he did not lift his eyes then. It is odd how the sense of hearing, when left to its unfettered play by the absence of the disturbing influence of facial expression, can discriminate in its analysis of the subtler emotions. He was quite sure that Miss Jaques was startled, even annoyed, by the appearance of some person whom ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... a famous appetite, untroubled by Iff's aspersion on his sense of hearing, which was excellent; and he had certainly heard Miss Searle aright: she had named the St. Regis not once, but twice, and each time with the clearest enunciation. He could only attribute the mistake to her excitement ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... the child begins to lisp, and at twelve months it is usually able to utter distinct and intelligible sounds of one or two syllables. The development of the senses and of the mind proceeds gradually. The sense of hearing is more active and further advanced than that of sight. Sounds are appreciated sooner than light or bright colored objects. The next sense which is developed is perhaps that of taste; then follow ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... sigh in the air that grew to a mutter, and a mutter that grew to a roar, and a roar that passed all sense of hearing, and the hillside on which the villagers stood was hit in the darkness, and rocked to the blow. Then a note as steady, deep, and true as the deep C of the organ drowned everything for perhaps five minutes, while the very roots of the pines quivered to it. It died away, and the sound of the ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... variety have we in sounds. Every articulate word is a different modification of sound; by which we see that, from the sense of hearing, by such modifications, the mind may be furnished with distinct ideas, to almost an infinite number. Sounds also, besides the distinct cries of birds and beasts, are modified by diversity of notes of different length put together, which make that complex idea called a tune, which a musician ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... is every one that is born of the Spirit." Plainly stated, Nicodemus was given to understand that his worldly learning and official status availed him nothing in any effort to understand the things of God; through the physical sense of hearing he knew that the wind blew; by sight he could be informed of its passage: yet what did he know of the ultimate cause of even this simple phenomenon? If Nicodemus would really be instructed in spiritual matters, he had to divest himself of ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... ice, at times like burning fire; always a heavy, heavy weight within her. At last Elizabeth went to bed. Still Ruth dared not think. Mary would come upstairs soon; and with a strange, sick, shrinking yearning, Ruth awaited her—and the crumbs of intelligence she might drop out about him. Ruth's sense of hearing was quickened to miserable intensity as she stood before the chimney-piece, grasping it tight with both hands—gazing into the dying fire, but seeing—not the dead grey embers, or the little sparks of vivid light that ran hither and thither ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... often our lightest words are omens!—faded out of the sky. Emily kept her eyes upon the windows none the less. She tried to understand what her father was saying sufficiently to put in a word now and then, but her sense of hearing was strained to its utmost for other sounds. There was no traffic in the road below, and the house itself was hushed; the ticking of the old clock, performed with such painful effort that it ever seemed on the point of failing, was the only sign of life outside the garret. At length Emily's ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... holding the limp brown head while whispering words of affection in the long ears, and who will say that Noddy's instinct did not respond to love, even though the physical sense of hearing was deaf to earthly sounds? She slowly revived and was resting comfortably when the house-call ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... car, it was mainly by the sense of hearing; the motor was drumming softly under the hood, and there was a blur in the mechanician's seat which answered for the crouching figure of the ward-worker. By a supreme effort of will Blount swung himself up behind the steering-wheel and let the clutch in. Luckily, the street was ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... at them with a confidential intention as he roared this out, forgetting in his excitement that mental infirmity does not impair the sense of hearing. This folly on his part was a salutary thing for Stephen Ryder. It calmed him instantly. He felt that he had need for caution. A fearful vista of possibilities opened before him. He remembered having seen in his childhood a man reputed to be suddenly bereft ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... but the love of life was strong; he tightened his grasp on the canoe. It was just then that he heard the voices of Ravenshaw's party and shouted, but the cry, as we have said, was very feeble, and the poor fellow's sense of hearing was dulled with cold and exhaustion, else he would ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne

... a secluded island in the Sound. Disasters frequently occur to vessels which are driven round Montauk Point, and sometimes in the Sound when they are homeward bound; and at such times she was always on the alert. She had so thoroughly cultivated the sense of hearing, that she could distinguish amid the howling storm the shrieks of the drowning mariners, and thus direct a boat, which she had learned to manage most dexterously, in the darkest night, to the spot where a fellow mortal was perishing. Though well educated and refined, she ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... one eye or both eyes, shall receive the full amount of his insurance."[63] Similar definitions of disability have been worked out by the other railway organizations. The Conductors add to this "total loss of the sense of hearing." The Switchmen include "the loss of four fingers of one hand, at or above the second joint." Disability, as defined by the Letter Carriers, means inability, because of sickness or accident, to perform the regular duties of a ...
— Beneficiary Features of American Trade Unions • James B. Kennedy

... used as a "Sonometer" for measuring the sense of hearing, and also for telling base coins. The writer devised a form of it for "divining" the presence of gold and metallic ores which has been applied by Captain M'Evoy in his "submarine detector" for exploring the sea bottom for lost anchors and sunken treasure. When President ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro

... for stout walkers, and the air grew lighter and easier to breathe as the two ascended. But the settled gloom remained as it had remained for days back. Nature seemed to have come to a pause. The sense of hearing, no less than the sense of sight, was troubled by having to wait so long for the change, whatever it might be, that impended. The silence was as palpable and heavy as the lowering clouds—or rather cloud, for there seemed to be but one in all the sky, and ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins

... sight and speech were almost gone, the sense of hearing was still left to him, and he understood what Henri said. He again moved his head in token of dissent; again pulled his friend towards him by the hand, and again muttered out a word, the last that he ever attempted to utter; that one word Henri heard as plainly as though ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... placing and reinforcing tone, the pupil is guided or assisted not only by the sense of hearing but by the sense of feeling. There will be the sensation of freedom, of ease, of power; a feeling as though the entire body from the head down to the waist were open and filled with tone. Remember, however, ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer

... the sense of hearing. He had been deceived so many times that he suspected his fancy was playing with him again, but the faint tip, tip continued until such ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... to tell his master it was homage; he could deceive him with impunity, for though the old man's eyes retained the sublime clearness which results from the habit of living among great thoughts, his sense of hearing ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac

... and not least efficacious means of grace. I pretend not too minutely to conjecture as to the actual nature of those pleasures which, after the resurrection, the re-united body and soul will enjoy in heaven; but I can hardly persuade myself that melody and harmony will be wanting, when even the sense of hearing shall ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond

... no time to talk; there was scarcely time to think. The road, the landscape, the very world, became a dizzying blur that destroyed all distinct sense of sight. In the rush of the air, and the rapid-fire fusillade from the motor, all sense of hearing ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... more than is necessary, but do everything you can English antipathy to babblers He is in the season of faults Impossible for us women to comprehend love without folly in man Never, never love a married woman Speech was a scourge to her sense of hearing ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger

... pointer on scent, all his faculties united in attention toward the girl. To Rainey he seemed attempting to visualize her by sheer sense of hearing, by perceptions quickened in the blind. The doctor crossed to the girl and spoke to her in ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... the present study is meant that element of the population in which the sense of hearing is either wholly absent or is so slight as to be of no practical value; or in which there is inability to hear and understand spoken language; or in which there exists no real sound perception. In other words, those persons are meant who may be regarded as either ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best

... sense of hearing was such a simple thing, really; why did people have to complicate it with all this talk about witches and the soul—she was reminded of Mrs. Wladek but put the woman out of her ...
— Hex • Laurence Mark Janifer (AKA Larry M. Harris)

... ascertain the security of the lock. The person, whoever it might be, was probably satisfied, for I heard the old boards of the lobby creak and strain, as if under the weight of somebody moving cautiously over them. My sense of hearing became unnaturally, almost painfully acute. I suppose the imagination added distinctness to sounds vague in themselves. I thought that I could actually hear the breathing of the person who was slowly returning along ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... hearing, which is next in importance to sight has as its qualities hate, love, mercy and cruelty. It takes some fine insight, he says, to see the connection of these qualities with the sense of hearing, but the intelligent and discerning reader will find this hint sufficient. I hope he will not blame me, Gabirol continues, if I do not bring together all the reasons and the scriptural passages to prove this, for human flesh is weak, especially in my case on ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... succeeded, though only partially, for so quick was the blind man's sense of hearing that in the middle of the conversation he said, sharply, "Somebody's ahint the dyke!" and he caught Grizel by the shoulder. "It's the Painted Lady's lassie," he said when she screamed, and he stormed against Tommy for ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... period of silence and Henry made himself as small and obscure as possible, lest the warriors, moving about, might see him. But, fortunately the night had now turned quite dark, and where eyes might fail his acute sense of hearing would reveal the approach of any enemy. But as he lay close he again laughed inwardly more than once. The three were certainly holding the grotto in most gallant fashion, and Long Jim was fast becoming one of the greatest orators ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... his blind face lifted to the sun and wearing an expression of idiotic rapture. Often she was tempted to tell Martha that the child must be kept at home, but somehow the memory of his foolish, happy face deterred her. She remembered that his sense of hearing was nearly all he had,—though it did not occur to her that he might have more of it ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... punishable by death. What expression is right and what is not, is simply a matter of opinion. One religious denomination that now exists does not allow singing; instrumental music has been to some a rock of offense, exciting the spirit through the sense of hearing, to improper thoughts—"through the lascivious pleasing of the lute"; others think dancing wicked, while a few allow pipe-organ music, but draw the line at the violin; while still others use a whole orchestra in their religious service. Some ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard

... Carey waited till the old man had left the kitchen and retired. Then she came from her hiding-place and at one glance saw what she wanted—the list of conspirators, which Geoffrey had laid open on the table. Her keen sense of hearing had followed this paper as if it were visible to her eyes, and she knew that it had not been returned to Dacre. With a firm hand she seized the document, and the next moment she had left the room, closing the two doors ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... shrill tone and was surprised to learn that he could not hear it. Tyndall's friend could hear all ordinary sound perfectly well. This, however, seemed to be sound of such a character as did not reach his sense of hearing. One who like Tyndall listened carefully to sounds of all kinds would quickly detect anything uncommon. This little incident teaches us that sounds may go on about us and yet we know nothing of them. Also it teaches us to think about tones, seek them, and in ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper

... dark, above all was bright and illuminated with glory. I seemed possessed at this moment of a new sense, and felt that the light brought with it a genial warmth; odours like those of the most balmy flowers appeared to fill the air, and the sweetest sounds of music absorbed my sense of hearing; my limbs had a new lightness given to them, so that I seemed to rise from the earth, and gradually mounted into the bright luminous air, leaving behind me the dark and cold cavern, and the ruins with which it was strewed. Language ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... novelty, would have done credit to a veteran. The visible evidences of the existence of the camp, or of the fire could not be detected from the spot where the canoe lay, and he was compelled to depend on the sense of hearing alone. He did not feel impatient, for the lessons he had heard taught him the virtue of patience, and, most of all, inculcated the necessity of wariness in conducting any covert assault on the Indians. Once he thought he heard the cracking of a dried twig, but expectation was so intense ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... have muscle feelings, or the sense of musculation; the sense of touch, the sense of pressure, the sense of warmth, the sense of cold, the sense of smell, the sense of taste, the sense of hearing and the sense of seeing. Altogether, we have nine important avenues, through which the inner man may gain a correct knowledge ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... inclination. I will not give way to it. I must try and find out what is going on outside. But neither sound nor light can penetrate this iron box. Wait a minute, though; perhaps by listening intently I may hear some sound, however feeble. Therefore I concentrate all my vital power in my sense of hearing. Moreover, I try—in case I should really not be on terra firma—to distinguish some movement, some oscillation of my prison. Admitting that the ship is still at anchor, it cannot be long before it will start—otherwise I shall have to give up imagining why Thomas Roch ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... says that the patients he saw in the magnetic state had an appearance of deep sleep, during which all the physical faculties were suspended, to the advantage of the intellectual faculties. The eyes of the patients were closed; the sense of hearing was abolished, and they awoke only at the voice of their magnetiser. "If any one touched a patient during a crisis, or even the chair on which he was seated," says M. Cloquet, "it would cause him much pain and suffering, and throw him into convulsions. During the crisis, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... they had done earlier in the evening, watched for their pursuers to pass. In this instance, however, the path was so screened that nothing could be seen, and our friends depended wholly upon their sense of hearing. ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... not do to linger long, for Trot might bark and arouse her father. Then she could not bear the thought that she should never see the faithful old dog again; and almost decided to go to him, but the thought had scarcely entered her mind ere her old companion was at her side. His keen sense of hearing had caught the sound of her movements, though to her they had seemed noiseless, and he had come from his kennel and stood at her side, looking up in her face as though he ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... under the heavens, the people will, at length, be able to take part in deliberation. By putting to confusion the musical scale, and destroying fifes and lutes, by deafening the ears of the blind Kuang, then, at last, will the human race in the world constrain his sense of hearing. By extinguishing literary compositions, by dispersing the five colours and by sticking the eyes of Li Chu, then, at length, mankind under the whole sky, will restrain the perception of his eyes. By destroying and eliminating the hooks and lines, by discarding ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... experiencing a brief moment of armed suspense, before they flung themselves into the arena of talk. At first, or it would never have been in the provinces, this talk at the long table, everyone broke into speech at once. There was a flood of words; one's sense of hearing was stunned by the noise. Gradually, as the cider and the thin red wine were passed, our neighbors gave digestion a chance; the din became less thick with words; each listened when the other talked. But, as the volume of ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... we stared at each other without pronouncing a word. My mind was in a total daze. My mental processes came to a dead stop. I hovered in that painful state that predominates during the period of anticipation before some frightful explosion. I waited, I listened, I lived only through my sense of hearing! ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... physical fitness and endurance to stand the strain of incessant rivalry. This is what these jungle people have. Their alertness, their capacity to glide through the forest almost as stealthily as an animal, their keenness of sight, their acute sense of hearing, their knowledge of jungle lore and of the habits of animals, and their ability to stand long and hard physical strain, are the envy of us civilised men when we find ourselves among them. Particularly is this shown when tracking. They will note the slightest ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband

... of the minds of persons thus situated, and especially while they remain uneducated. He who is deprived of the sense of sight has the windows of his soul closed, and is effectually shut out from this world of light and beauty. In like manner, he who is deprived of the sense of hearing is excluded from the world of music and of speech. What, then, must be the condition of persons deprived of both of these senses? How desolate and cheerless! ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great writing-table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not only very untidy but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of that with our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we followed the poor child who had tumbled downstairs: I think into the back kitchen, where somebody seemed to ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... his eyes and grew calm, and, except for now and then a kind and low word to his nurse, might have been thought to slumber. As nightfall came on, however, and the storm began to rise, something seemed to trouble the repose of the boy's mind and to render his sense of hearing active and acute. If a passing wind lingered to shake the casement, he strove to turn his head toward it; if the door jarred to and fro upon its hinges, he looked long and anxiously thitherward; if the heavy voice of the old man as he read the Scriptures rose but a little ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... was standing by the quarter-deck rail on the starboard side, when I called John aft to me, and bade him listen. He did so with the greatest attention. Turning to me he then said, "Rely upon it, Captain Ravender, you have been without rest too long, and the novelty is only in the state of your sense of hearing." I thought so too by that time, and I think so now, though I can never know for absolute certain in this world, ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens

... different opinions, and that each one persisted in his own. Finally Teanyi spoke alone, and for quite a while in a low voice; and the governor listened attentively and with growing interest. Though Teanyi's voice was muffled, Shotaye still overheard the word Cayamo several times. Straining her sense of hearing, she caught the words tupoge, tema quio, finally Shotaye also. The tuyo listened, smiled, winked slyly, and at last laughed aloud. At the same time he turned his face to her and nodded most pleasantly; thereupon he said a few words to Teanyi aloud, and ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... the wild ass, Equus kiang, indicates his close relationship to the horse, and "kiang" is what he is called by the people of Tibet. The wild ass is as large as an average mule, with well-developed ears, and a sharp sense of hearing; his tail is tufted at the end, and he is reddish-brown in colour, except on the legs and belly, where he is white. When he scents danger he snorts loudly, throws up his head, cocks his ears, and expands his nostrils; he is more like a fine ass than a horse, but when you see ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... simple truth, the child will learn to spell merely by looking at it! How can three sounds, which run thus to the ear, see-eh-tee, compose the sound cat? Don't they rather compose the sound see-eh-te, or ceaty? How can a system of education flourish that begins by so monstrous a falsehood, which the sense of hearing suffices to contradict? No wonder that the horn-book is the despair of mothers! From this instance the reader will perceive that Dr. Herman, in his theory of education, began at the beginning,—he ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... same manner, they are passed through to the other side, and stretched taut on the windlasses by means of the handspikes until they give the same sound. Thus with tight wedging, catapults are tuned to the proper pitch by musical sense of hearing. ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... passers-by, and sank upon the grass, In a hollow of the field. Then, closing his eyes, he realised that this was no passing disturbance, but something far more serious. He did not become entirely unconscious, but he lost the sense of hearing and of touch, his memory, and all account of time. When he first recovered his senses, the feeling on the backs of his hands, of the coarse cloth, different from that of his usual habit, filled him with a curiosity, rather amused than troubled, concerning his own identity. He felt ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro



Words linked to "Sense of hearing" :   ear, perfect pitch, exteroception, absolute pitch, auditory system, modality, sensory system, sense modality



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