Dictionary

harken en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /ˈhɑːk(ə)n/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˈhɑɹkən/ (General-American)
• (Southern-England) audio
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

See hearken

Meanings

1. (US, alt-of, alternative, ambitransitive) Alternative spelling of hearken: to hear, to listen, to have regard.
   alt of hearken
   • [T]he mother who had shaped him if any had toward the man he almost was, [...] whom he had revered and harkened to and loved and lost and grieved: [...] 1942, William Faulkner, “The Bear”, in Go Down, Moses, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →OCLC, section 5, page 326:
   • Ev'n from the depths of Hell the Damn'd advance, / Th' Infernal Manſions nodding ſeem to dance; / The gaping three-mouth'd Dog forgets to ſnarl, / The Furies harken, and their Snakes uncurl. 1697, Virgil, “The Fourth Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 143, lines 690–693:
   • How, then, am I mad? Harken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story. 1843 January, Edgar A[llan] Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, in J[ames] Russell Lowell, R[obert] Carter, editors, The Pioneer. A Literary and Critical Magazine, volume I, number I, Boston, Mass.: Leland and Whiting, […], →OCLC, page 29, column 1:
2. (US, figuratively, intransitive) 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).
   • Bell argued that the manual approach was "backwards," and harkened to a primitive age where humans used gesture and pantomime. 2005, Carol Padden, Tom L. Humphries, Inside Deaf Culture, page 48:

Forms

Deriveds

harkener · harken back

Descendants

arki