'ear

'ear is the pronunciation spelling of hear.

Meaning of hear

hear (third-person singular simple present hears, present participle hearing, simple past and past participle heard)

(intransitive, stative) To perceive sounds through the ear.
- I was deaf, but now I can hear.
(stative, transitive) To perceive (a sound, or something producing a sound) with the ear, to recognize (something) in an auditory way.
- I could hear them quarreling upstairs, but didn’t really listen to their argument.
Synonyms:

catch
(transitive) To exercise this faculty intentionally; to listen to.
- 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?1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, John
(transitive) To listen favourably to; to grant (a request etc.).
- Eventually the king chose to hear her entreaties.
(transitive) To receive information about; to come to learn of.
- Adam, soon as he heard / The fatal Trespass don by Eve, amaz'd, / Astonied stood and Blank […]1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost
To be contacted by.
- I haven't heard from you in a while; how have you been?

third-person singular present	'ears
present participle	'earing
past participle	'eard
past	'eard

A representation of the pronunciation of hear by a speaker whose dialect lacks the voiceless glottal fricative or transition ([h]).

What is 'ear the pronunciation spelling of?: 'ear is the pronunciation spelling of hear.

Adapted from Wiktionary: 'ear (page history and authors); hear (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “'ear.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/%27ear. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.