harken
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English [edit]
Pronunciation [edit]
Verb [edit]
harken (third-person singular simple present harkens, present participle harkening, simple past and past participle harkened)
- Alternative spelling of hearken ‘to listen, hear, regard’, more common form in the US.
- 1833: Alfred Tennyson
- Œnone Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
- 1883: Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
- We were not many minutes on the road, though we sometimes stopped to lay hold of each other and harken. But there was no unusual sound...
- 1942, William Faulkner, The Bear
- ... whom he had revered and harkened to and loved and lost and grieved:
- 1833: Alfred Tennyson
- (figuratively, US) To hark back, to return or revert (to a subject etc.), to allude to, to evoke, to long or pine for (a past event or era).
- 1994, David Coogan, Electronic Writing Centers: Computing the Field of Composition, page 4
- The emerging consensus that writing was merely transcribed speech, then, harkened back to the pre-disciplinary, liberal arts college
- 2005, Carol Padden, Tom L. Humphries, Inside Deaf Culture, page 48
- Bell argued that the manual approach was "backwards," and harkened to a primitive age where humans used gesture and pantomime.
- 1994, David Coogan, Electronic Writing Centers: Computing the Field of Composition, page 4
Usage notes [edit]
The bare form harken has been used since the 1980s, though some authorities frown upon this and prefer the traditional form hark back.
References [edit]
- harken in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
- Merriam-Webster’s dictionary of English usage, 1995, p. 497
- “Hark/Hearken”, Paul Brians, Common Errors in English Usage, (2nd Edition, November, 2008)
Anagrams [edit]
Dutch [edit]
Etymology [edit]
From early modern Dutch harcken, hercken, from hark (“rake”).
Pronunciation [edit]
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Audio (file)
Verb [edit]
harken
- to rake, to use the rake on
Conjugation [edit]
Conjugation of harken (weak)
