following

following n Following, clientele, public, audience are comparable when they denote the body of persons who attach themselves to another especially as disciples, patrons, or admirers.

Following is the most comprehensive term, applicable to a group that follows either as a physical train or retinue or as the adherents of a leader, the disciples of a philosopher, the customers of a salesman, the admirers of a young woman, or the fans of an actor

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such a man, with a great name in the country and a strong following in Parliament— Macaulay

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he unconsciously enrolls a following of like-minded persons— Montague

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Clientele is chiefly used of the persons, collectively, who go habitually for services to a professional man (as a lawyer or physician) or who give their patronage to a business establishment (as a hotel, a restaurant, or a shop)

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Dr. Doe has among his clientele all the leading families in the town

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summer hotels usually send out circulars to their clientele in the spring

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Public basically denotes a group of people with a common interest and may come close to following in many of its applications (as to adherents, disciples, customers, and admirers); often, however, it distinctively conveys the notion of a group making active demands rather than one passively or admiringly following

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a novelist's public, in fact, is people who read everything he writes even when they hate it— Cary

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a public relations program must be concerned with the policies of the institution, their interpretation and announcement to the college's various publics— Brecht

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protecting movie stars from their publics— New Yorker

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these two books on Spain are different in purpose, different in scope, and aimed at different publics— Bergin

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Audience is applicable to a following that listens with attention to what a person has to say whenever he addresses them (as in a speech or a book)

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still govern thou my song, Urania, and fit audience find, though few— Milton

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the stricken poet [Leopardi] . . . had no country, for an Italy in his day did not exist, he had no audience, no celebrity— Arnold

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Audience, rather than spectators (see SPECTATOR), is also the usual term for designating the body of persons attending a lecture, a play, or a concert on the assumption that they are there primarily to hear, only secondarily to see

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the audience at the opera packed the house

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