Word.ws English Dictionary

behearken

behearken verb: to listen to; hearken to; observe; obey.

Verb

behearken (third-person singular simple present behearkens, present participle behearkening, simple past and past participle behearkened)

  1. (transitive) To listen to; hearken to; observe; obey.
    • The king prayed he might behearken mass first, and that was done.1895, Snorri Sturluson, The Saga Library

Forms of behearken

third-person singular presentbehearkens
present participlebehearkening
past participlebehearkened
pastbehearkened

Origin of behearken

From be- + hearken. Cognate with West Frisian beharkje (“to listen, listen to”).

Questions about behearken

What does behearken mean?
Behearken means to listen to; hearken to; observe; obey.
What part of speech is behearken?
Behearken is a verb.
What is the past tense of behearken?
The past tense of behearken is behearkened.

Words near behearken in the dictionary

  1. beheadphoned
  2. beheads
  3. behear
  4. beheard
  5. behearing
  6. behearken
  7. behears
  8. beheart
  9. behedge
  10. behedged
  11. behedges

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: behearken (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.

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