Harken

Quick meaning: Harken is a verb meaning (ambitransitive, chiefly US) Alternative spelling of hearken: to hear, to listen, to have regard.

Meaning

(ambitransitive, chiefly US) Alternative spelling of hearken: to hear, to listen, to have regard.

More Meanings

1. (intransitive, US, figuratively) 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).

Example Sentences

How, then, am I mad? Harken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

Bell argued that the manual approach was "backwards," and harkened to a primitive age where humans used gesture and pantomime.

[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: [...]

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.

Word Forms

• harkens
• harkening
• harkened

Synonyms for harken

Depending on context, synonyms include hearken, hark.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include hark, hearken, listen, hark back, recall, hanker.

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