Word.ws English Dictionary

closed-back

closed-back adjective: of headphones: completely covering the ear, so that there is no airflow through the wearer's ears.

Adjective

closed-back (not comparable)

  1. Of headphones: completely covering the ear, so that there is no airflow through the wearer's ears.
    • Closed-back earphones with active noise canceling by manufacturers like Bose and Phiaton produce a nullifying frequency to block intrusive sounds.2015 July 2, Kate Murphy, “The Difference Between Listening Up and Tuning Out”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 28 Jun 2022
    • For a closed-back headphone, they've got a relatively open soundscape, too, which makes extended listening less tiring than some more direct cans.2016 March 3, Samuel Gibbs, “Blue Lola headphones review: not your average set of cans”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 16 Apr 2022
    Antonyms:
    open-back

Synonyms of closed-back

Antonyms

Questions about closed-back

What does closed-back mean?
Closed-back means of headphones: completely covering the ear, so that there is no airflow through the wearer's ears.
What part of speech is closed-back?
Closed-back is an adjective.

Words near closed-back in the dictionary

  1. closed towns
  2. closed up
  3. closed visit
  4. closed visits
  5. closed with
  6. closed-back
  7. closed-book
  8. closed-captioned
  9. closed-circuit
  10. closed-circuit television
  11. closed-circuit televisions

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: closed-back (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “closed-back.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/closed-back. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.