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audiometer

An audiometer is a specialized medical instrument that measures your ability to hear certain sounds. Doctors use audiometers to diagnose hearing loss.

The word audiometer combines audio, a word derived from a Latin word meaning "hear," and meter, from Greek and Latin words meaning "measure." A typical audiometer has headphones attached to a machine that makes a series of beeping sounds at different pitches and frequencies. You signal, usually by pressing a button, to show that you've heard a sound. The machine records the results and produces a graph, called an audiogram, which plots your hearing across different frequencies and pitches in each ear.

Definitions of audiometer
  1. noun
    an instrument used to measure the sensitivity of hearing
    synonyms: sonometer
    see moresee less
    type of:
    measuring device, measuring instrument, measuring system
    instrument that shows the extent or amount or quantity or degree of something
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