From Middle English heden, from Old English hēdan (“to heed, take care, observe, attend, guard, take charge, take possession, receive”), from Proto-West Germanic *hōdijan (“to heed, guard”), from Proto-Indo-European *kadʰ- (“to heed, protect”). Cognate with West Frisian hoedje (“to heed”), Dutch hoeden (“to heed”), German hüten (“to heed”).
Meanings
(uncountable) Careful attention.
Then for a few minutes I did not pay much heed to what was said, being terribly straitened for room, and cramped with pain from lying so long in one place. [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC:
From Middle English heden, from Old English hēdan (“to heed, take care, observe, attend, guard, take charge, take possession, receive”), from Proto-West Germanic *hōdijan (“to heed, guard”), from Proto-Indo-European *kadʰ- (“to heed, protect”). Cognate with West Frisian hoedje (“to heed”), Dutch hoeden (“to heed”), German hüten (“to heed”).
Meanings
(obsolete) To guard, protect.
(transitive) To mind; to regard with care; to take notice of; to attend to; to observe.
With pleasure Argus the musician heeds. 1567, Ovid, translated by John Dryden, Metamorphoses, Book 1:
Tolokonnikova not only tried to adjust to life in the penal colony but she even tried to heed the criticism levied at her by colony representatives during a parole hearing. 2013 September 23, Masha Gessen, “Life in a Russian Prison”, in New York Times, retrieved 24 Sep 2013:
"It comes back to me that I wanted to say something to the driver and that I couldn't make him heed me." 1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:
The help tended to be officious, the rules, if heeded, restrictive, and the management meddlesome. 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168:
Barker's proposal to try out new equipment before mass introduction should also have been heeded, because traction components bought without trialling for the Glasgow and Great Eastern schemes gave trouble. 2020 July 29, David Clough, “AC/DC: the big switch in power supply”, in Rail, page 65: