to hear voices
40
8.4
- phrasal verb
- /hɪr ˈvɔɪsɪz/
- Specialized
:
oír voces
- For the next hour, the pickup came and went, and she heard voices through the screen.
- hear voices in your head
- hear voices telling
- thought I heard voices
When Amanda leaves the room, she can hear voices, but it's always in French.
- When Amanda leaves the room, she can hear voices, but it's always in French.
- She has that schizophrenia where she's hearing voices.
- But before this, for quite a long time, I was hearing voices in me mind clear as day.
- She writes about her experiences of hearing voices and she shows us that this experience is a very diverse one.
- I will often hear voices, men's voices, women's voices, usually short sentences, very hard for me to remember what they said in the morning.
- People who hear voices, who see things that other people don't see, who have thoughts that other people find inconsistent with reality.
- I started to, you know, look like he was hearing voices, although he wasn't, but, you know, just control of emotion.
Examples
-
I was just about to knock on his door when I heard voices inside.
Fiction book (1993) -
But before this, for quite a long time, I was hearing voices in me mind clear as day.
-
But that was right before I was committed to County for hearing voices.
Fiction book (1995) -
"Billy, are you sure you are not hearing voices again?" asked Dr. White gently.
Fiction book (1997) -
At night, he could hear voices through the walls despite the air conditioner.
Fiction book (1993) -
Mother brings him here to Cross-Concourse Community Outreach because she says he is hearing voices.
Fiction book (1997) -
I woke up one night, hearing voices in the living room, and I crept into the hallway.
Fiction book (1995) -
From this time onward, Mason was a changed man: he began to hear voices and experience visions of the coming millennium.
Academic text (2018) -
Faye slept soundly, but I continue to hear voices outside, different ones, on and off all night until dawn.
-
Many patients in the clinic report that they hear voices that no one else can.
Synonyms
75
7.4
To see or hear things that are not there
5
8.8
To notice sounds or voices that are not there
How Severe
- Specialized
40
8.4
5
8.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is largely compositional: a learner who knows 'hear' and 'voice(s)' will understand it as perceiving sounds of people speaking. However, the specific clinical/idiomatic implication that the voices are not actually present (i.e. auditory hallucinations) is an additional, context-dependent inference that is not fully predictable from the constituents alone.
Etymology
Hear voices shows the simple picture of someone hearing a voice when no one is there. People long ago thought spirits or inner thoughts were speaking, so today hear voices means 'to hear sounds or voices that are not actually present', often in some mental health conditions.