hearken
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: derivation
Etymology: From Middle English herkenen (“to listen (attentively); to pay attention, take heed”) [and other forms], from Old English hercnian, heorcnian, hyrcnian, from *heorcian (“to hark”) infixed with -n-, from Proto-West Germanic *hauʀijan, from Proto-Germanic *hauzijaną (“to hear”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ḱh₂owsyéti (“to be sharp-eared, hear well”), from *h₂eḱ- (“sharp”) + *h₂ṓws (“ear”) + *-yéti (denominative suffix), thus equivalent to hark + -en.
The spelling of the English word was probably influenced by hear; a similarly analogical pronunciation existed in Early Modern English.
Base: hark
Affixes: -en
Inflected forms:
form: hearkens
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: hearkening
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: hearkened
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: hearkened
pos: verb
tags: past
form: no-table-tags
pos: verb
tags: table-tags
form: glossary
pos: verb
tags: inflection-template
form: hearken
pos: verb
tags: infinitive
form: hearken
pos: verb
tags: first-person
present
singular
form: hearkened
pos: verb
tags: first-person
past
singular
form: hearken
pos: verb
tags: present
second-person
singular
form: hearkenest
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
second-person
singular
form: hearkened
pos: verb
tags: past
second-person
singular
form: hearkenedst
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: hearkens
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: hearkeneth
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
singular
third-person
form: hearkened
pos: verb
tags: past
singular
third-person
form: hearken
pos: verb
tags: plural
present
form: hearkened
pos: verb
tags: past
plural
form: hearken
pos: verb
tags: present
subjunctive
form: hearkened
pos: verb
tags: past
subjunctive
form: hearken
pos: verb
tags: imperative
present
form: -
pos: verb
tags: imperative
past
form: hearkening
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: hearkened
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: harken
pos: verb
tags: alternative
US
Senses:
gloss: To hear (something) with attention; to have regard to (something).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Thenceforth ſhe paſt into his dreadfull den, / VVhere nought but darkeſome drerineſſe ſhe found, / Ne creature ſaw, but hearkned now and then / Some little whiſpering, and ſoft groaning ſound.
This King of Naples being an Enemy / To me inueterate, hearkens my Brothers ſuit, / Which was, That he in lieu o' th' premiſes, / Of homage, and I know not how much Tribute, / Should preſently extirpate me and mine / Out of the Dukedome, and confer faire Milane / With all the Honors, on my brother: […]
With pleaſure he hearkens the heart-ſoothing chear / Shakes Morpheus and ſlumber away; / While joyful he ſtarts, and with ſpeed doth appear / The foremoſt to welcome the day.
Tho' I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what ye say, / And be often—often with ye when ye think I'm faraway.
And now a sweet bird calls its scattered mates, / And gaily hearkens the unburdened heart.
Up in the spire / The watcher set high o'er the half-hid town / Hearkens the sound of chiming bells fall down / Below him: […]
gloss: To listen; to attend or give heed to what is uttered; to hear with attention, compliance, or obedience.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: Who ſo hearkeneth vnto me, ſhal not come to confuſion, & they that worke by me, ſhal not offende; [they that make me to be knowen, ſhal haue euerlaſting life.]
She hearkens for his hounds and for his horn: / Anon she hears them chant it lustily, / And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.
And vnto Adam he [God] ſaid, Becauſe thou hast hearkened vnto the voice of thy wife [Eve], and haſt eaten of the tree, of which I commaunded thee, ſaying, Thou ſhalt not eate of it: curſed is the ground for thy ſake: in ſorow ſhalt thou eate of it all the dayes of thy life.
Nowe therefore hearken, O Iſrael, vnto the Statutes, and vnto the Judgments which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may liue, and goe in and poſſeſſe the lande, which the Lord God of your fathers giueth you.
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.
When ſhe [voluptuousness] ſpreadeth her delicacies on the table, when her wine ſparkleth in the cup, when ſhe ſmileth upon thee, and perſuadeth thee to be joyful and happy; then is the hour of danger, and let reaſon ſtand firmly on her guard: for, if thou hearkeneſt unto the words of her adverſary, thou art deceived and betrayed.
If the advice of an old man is, then, worth hearkening to, children, you will quickly, go different ways to your places of shelter and safety.
O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida, / Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
How, then, am I mad? Harken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story.
Thou who art of all things Lord, / Well I know, in Galilee, / Hearkenedst to Thy mother's word, / Teach me such a child to be.
We were not many minutes on the road, though we sometimes stopped to lay hold of each other and hearken. But there was no unusual sound—nothing but the low wash of the ripple and the croaking of the inmates of the wood.
[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: […]
You do not, in short, speak in order to encourage others to speak freely but in order to discourage others from disseminating or hearkening to error. You do not seek to enfranchise the community but to bind it to the truths you take to be salutary.
gloss: To enquire; to seek information.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
obsolete
examples: Claudio. Hearken after their offence my Lord. / Prince. Officers, what offence haue theſe men done?
Derived words: behearken
hearken back
hearkener
Translations: