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I know a lot of words, but it's driving me crazy that I can't think of one for this. I'm sure there must be one. I want to be able to say:

I had not only a great view of the ocean from that room, but also a great _,

where the blank means that I could hear it well as well as see it. Does such a word exist? (Rather, does it exist in the lexicon of "words regular people would recognize as being English" — that's what I'm looking for, not an extremely archaic word or one you made up. )

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  • Auditory/Listening experience?
    – mplungjan
    Commented Dec 30, 2013 at 20:38
  • I am looking for this word too, and I cannot find it either. We say "love at first sight", but that has a different connection with vision than "love at first sound" (if that would have been an expression) has with hearing. You can't really say "love at first acoustics" or "love at first auditory ambiance"... Who could help? Thanks. Rogier
    – Rogier van der Heide
    Commented Feb 7, 2019 at 15:51
  • I'm flagging this as Not An Answer. Rogier, this site is different from others: it's not a forum, so please don't post comments in the Answer Box. Comments are a privilege requiring 50 reputation points, but you can easily earn these points by posting good answers (each upvote earns you 10 pts) or questions (upvotes earn 5 pts). :-)
    – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten
    Commented Feb 8, 2019 at 5:41

10 Answers 10

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I don't think there is a single word for it, and if there were it would be so obscure as to render it largely useless.

I would probably say "aural vantage point".

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    @Susan Congratulations until such time as someone does come up with a word :p. Though at this point I'm thinking there actually isn't one, which is too bad, but explains why I couldn't think of one. "There isn't a word for it" is definitely a better answer to my question than a word that doesn't really fit.
    – neminem
    Commented Dec 31, 2013 at 0:33
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A soundscape possibly even a Geophony.

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  • I don't think soundscape quite fits - I'd find it at least awkward to say "I had a great soundscape of the ocean" - unless I meant that I possessed an audio recording of it, but then lost it. I certainly couldn't say "I had a great soundscape of the ocean from my hotel room", which I could say if the word were "view".
    – neminem
    Commented Dec 30, 2013 at 20:55
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    @neminem Your second example seems perfectly cromulent to me. Soundscape works as an audio version of "landscape"... so maybe audioscape?
    – Elliott Frisch
    Commented Dec 30, 2013 at 21:05
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People tend to use the word ambience when it comes to sound, like we would temperature.

I am suggesting

I had not only a great view of the ocean from that room, but also a great sound ambience.

or

I had not only a great view of the ocean from that room, but also a great auditory ambiance.

Further suggestions,

I had not only a great view of the ocean from that room, but also a calming/exciting/interesting auditory/sound/aural ambience.

am•bi•ance or am•bi•ence
n., pl. -bi•anc•es or -bi•enc•es
the mood, special quality, or atmosphere of a place, situation, etc.; environment; milieu: The restaurant had a delightful ambiance.
[1885–90; < French, =ambi(ant) surrounding (Middle French, also ambient < Latin; see ambient) + -ance -ance]

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an "audioception" of the ocean??? (maybe)

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  • +1 - this should so be a word. Latin audī- (s. of audīre to hear) + audio- (I hear) + (re)ception (from Latin receptio, from recipere, to receive). Mo maybe about it.
    – anongoodnurse
    Commented Dec 31, 2013 at 0:48
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auditory experience (I mean, that is what it is)

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To me, "the acoustics of [a place]" is the audio equivalent of "the view from [a place]". So how about:

"...but also great acoustics?"

The "a" before the blank is gone, but that is only because acoustics is plural -- just like the "a" before view would be gone if you said "not only great views of the ocean..."

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    acoustics feels right but it implies aural qualities of sounds emanating from the room itself, not from outside.
    – Martin Krzywinski
    Commented Jan 15, 2015 at 22:23
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    It's a good word but doesn't fit the sentence: "I had not only a great view ... but also great acoustics". Acoustics is the property of the place, not of the observer.
    – Mynamite
    Commented Jan 15, 2015 at 22:24
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In the same way that something is 'in view' or 'not in view', in can be 'within earshot', or 'out of earshot'. But the word 'earshot' does not have the same versatility as 'view'. We don't speak of 'a beautiful earshot', for example.

One possibility might be the gerund listening, with these examples from the OED: 1985 Church Times 19 July 9/3 Other incidents in his life also made interesting listening. or 1966 Listener 10 Feb. 221/3 The portrayal of..the jostling and jockeying of the foreign ambassadors, made really good listening.

It fills some of the uses akin to view, but does not have the same range as the latter word. There seems to me little in the way of an equivalent for a wonderful view of the sea. One could perhaps say within the listening range of the waves crashing on the beach.

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  • Ha! If I heard about a "beautiful earshot", I would assume it was a sniper (most likely in a video game) who took a particularly good shot successfully, i.e. a subset of "headshot". :D
    – neminem
    Commented Mar 30, 2022 at 16:07
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I don't think there is a word for this. So I'll be glib and propose one: soundout, motivated by the corresponding visual term lookout.

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Could it be as simple as listen?

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I was looking for a similar word. When one moves out of view, or our of sight, and someone suggested "earshot", which probably works better for my example than yours. "Their footsteps diminished out of ear shot" or rather "...until they were out of earshot."

Which is where I would propose the use of the word "hearing" rather for both our situations: "The foots steps diminished out of hearing" - implying "hearing range" which does suggest distance much like "earshot".

In your case: "I had not only a great view of the ocean from that room, but also a great hearing of it." I would suggest you think about it like a holding a hearing of poetry or a music piece (or more traditionally, similar to a trial). "I had a great hearing of the ocean from my hotel room."

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