hear
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /hɪə/
ipa: /hɪɚ/
ipa: [hiːɹ]
ipa: /hjɜː/
ipa: /hiə/
ipa: /hiːɹ/
note: East Anglia, cheer–chair merger
ipa: /hɛː/
ipa: /heː(ɹ)/
note: Indic
ipa: /hɪɜ̯(ɾ)/
rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)
homophone: here
homophone: hir
homophone: hair
homophone: hare (both cheer–chair merger)
Forms: form: hears
form: hearing
form: heard
form: heard
form: heare
form: 'ear
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱ-
Proto-Indo-European *h₂ew-
Proto-Indo-European *-s
Proto-Indo-European *h₂ṓws
Proto-Indo-European *-yéti
Proto-Indo-European *h₂ḱh₂owsyéti
Proto-Germanic *hauzijaną
Proto-West Germanic *hauʀijan
Old English hīeran
Middle English heren
English hear
From Middle English heren, from Old English hīeran (“to hear”), from Proto-West Germanic *hauʀijan, from Proto-Germanic *hauzijaną (“to hear”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ḱh₂owsyéti (“to be sharp-eared”), from *h₂eḱ- (“sharp”) + *h₂ows- (“ear”) + *-yéti (denominative suffix).
Cognates
Cognate with Saterland Frisian heere (“to hear”), West Frisian hearre (“to hear”), Dutch horen (“to hear”), German hören (“to hear”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål høre (“to hear”), Norwegian Nynorsk høyra (“to hear”), Swedish höra (“to hear”), Icelandic heyra (“to hear”), Ancient Greek ἀκούω (akoúō, “I hear”).
Senses: examples: text: I was deaf, and now I can hear.
glosses: To perceive sounds through the ear.
examples: text: I could hear them quarreling upstairs, but didn’t really listen to their argument.
text: Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads. So roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with such a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on the veranda.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
glosses: To perceive (a sound, or something producing a sound) with the ear, to recognize (something) in an auditory way.
examples: text: Agayne there was dissencion amonge the iewes for these sayinges, and many of them sayd: He hath the devyll, and is madde: why heare ye hym?
ref: 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, John:
text: It had been his intention to go to Wimbledon, but as he himself said: “Why be blooming well frizzled when you can hear all the results over the wireless. And results are all that concern me. […]”
ref: 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 3, in Death on the Centre Court:
glosses: To exercise this faculty intentionally; to listen to.
examples: text: Eventually the king chose to hear her entreaties.
glosses: To listen favourably to; to grant (a request etc.).
examples: text: Adam, soon as he heard / The fatal Trespass don by Eve, amaz'd, / Astonied stood and Blank […]
ref: 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost:
glosses: To receive information about; to come to learn of.
examples: text: When I don't hear from you, My days feel long and lonely.
ref: 2009, Elsa T. Aguries, The Pearl Within, →ISBN, page 141:
text: They're ten hours overdue. Have you heard from any of them since they left Nineveh?
ref: 2012, Art Wiederhold, Charles Sutphen, From the Depths of Evil, →ISBN, page 343:
text: She left and I never heard from her again.
ref: 2012, James Meredith, A Mission from God: A Memoir and Challenge for America, →ISBN:
glosses: To be contacted by.
raw_tags: with from
examples: text: Your case will be heard at the end of the month.
topics: law
glosses: To listen to (a person, case) in a court of law; to try.
examples: text: You're tired of all the ads on TV? I hear ya.
glosses: To sympathize with; to understand the feelings or opinion of.
examples: text: SPHÆRUS was of Bosphorus, he first heard Zeno, then Cleanthes, and having made a sufficient progresse in learning, went to Alexandria to Ptolomy Philopater […]
ref: 1656, Thomas Stanley, The History of Philosophy. The Eighth Part, Containing the Stoick Philosophers, page 15:
text: Ammonius, the teacher of both Simplicius and Philoponus, tells us how Julian gave a ruling […] in favor of Maximus, who had heard Iamblichus, and followed him and Porphyry (in An. Pr. 31,15–22).
ref: 1990, Henry J. Blumenthal, “Themistius: the last Peripatetic commentator on Aristotle?”, in Richard Sorabji, editor, Aristotle Transformed: The Ancient Commentators and Their Influence, 2nd edition, published 2016, →ISBN, pages 130–31:
text: Charmadas, never actually Head of School but a prominent Academic who had himself heard Carneades, was prepared to teach Plato’s Gorgias […]
ref: 2018, “Introduction: The Old Academy to Cicero”, in Harold Tarrant et al., editors, Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Plato in Antiquity, →ISBN, pages 24–25:
topics: human-sciences
philosophy
sciences
glosses: To study under.
Synonyms: word: hear
Hypernyms: word: perceive
Hyponyms: word: behear
word: eavesdrop
word: hear on the grapevine
word: listen
word: outhear
word: overhear
Derived terms: another county heard from
behear
children should be seen and not heard
could hear a pin drop
forehear
hard of hearing
hark
hearability
hearable
hear both sides
hearer
hear from
hear hear
hearie
hearing aid
hear me out
hear of
hear oneself think
hear on the grapevine
hear out
hearsay
hearsome
hear tell
hear the end of it
hear the grass grow
hear the last of
hear things
hear-through
hear through the grapevine
hear voices
hear what I'm saying
hear ye
I can't hear you over the sound of
I hear you say
I've never heard it called that before
last I heard
let's hear it for someone
long time no hear
mishear
now hear this
now I've heard everything
one could hear a pin drop
outhear
overhear
rehear
shot heard round the world
shot heard 'round the world
so quiet one can hear a pin drop
so quiet one could hear a pin drop
so quiet you can hear a pin drop
the last I heard
there are none so deaf as those who will not hear
unhear
you hear me
you hear what I'm saying
Related terms: word: audible
word: deaf
word: listen
word: ear