An audition is a short performance to show the talents of someone (such as an actor or a musician) who is being considered for a role in a play, a position in an orchestra, etc.

// Auditions will be held next week for the spring musical.

// She had an audition for a small part but ended up landing a starring role.

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“When she was 18, Hannah D’Amato auditioned for a spot at the Berklee College of Music. Midway through her audition, one of the male judges walked up to her guitar amp and lowered the volume knob. Demoralized and insulted, D’Amato decided to bypass the prestigious institution and start a band on her own. Thus the origin story of Fake Fruit, the Bay Area punk trio she’s been fronting over several incarnations since 2016.” — Zach Schonfeld, Pitchfork, 23 Aug. 2024

Today, audition most often refers to an artistic performance, but that wasn’t always the case. Audition has roots in the Latin verb audīre meaning “to hear,” and was first used in the late 16th century to refer to the power or sense of hearing. Audīre is also the root of such hearing-related words in English as audible (“capable of being heard”), audience (which first meant “the act or state of hearing”), and the combining form audio-, which appears in various words relating to sound. It wasn’t until the late 19th century that the noun audition began being used for an entertainer’s trial performance. And the verb audition, meaning “to test or try out in an audition,” didn’t appear on the English language stage until the mid-20th century.