hark back

/ˌhɑːk ˈbæk/US/ˌhɑɹk ˈbæk/

hark back verb: of hounds: to retrace a course in order to pick up the lost scent of prey.

Verb

hark back (third-person singular simple present harks back, present participle harking back, simple past and past participle harked back)

(intransitive) Of hounds: to retrace a course in order to pick up the lost scent of prey.
(broadly, intransitive) To return to where one has previously been; to retrace one's steps.
- He must have overshot the mark, and must hark back. So he turned his weary horse's head, and made his way back along the road to the spot where his spoor struck into it.1885, H[enry] Rider Haggard, “Hans’ City of Rest”, in The Witch’s Head […], volume III, London: Hurst and Blackett, […], →OCLC, page 18
Synonyms:

go back
(figuratively, intransitive) To allude, return, or revert (to a subject previously mentioned, etc.); also, to evoke, or long or pine for (a past era or event).
- Mr. Flemyng, who had been assuaging his thirst with more champagne during the afternoon, had harked back to the subject of his morning's discourse, and was laying down an authoritative scheme of ethics, in the course of which sundry hard words, such as transcendentalism, pseudo-materialism and the...1881, W[illiam] E[dward] Norris, “A Racecourse and a Cathedral”, in Matrimony. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, pages 76–77
- Harking back to the theme of a series of speeches he [George W. Bush] delivered last week, he said he was reminded that "there's still an enemy out there that would like to inflict the same kind of damage again."2006 September 11, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Bush Mourns 9/11 at Ground Zero as N.Y. Remembers”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...
Synonyms:

harken back, hearken back, call back
(transitive) To call back (hounds); to recall.

Noun

hark back (plural hark backs)

An act of hounds retracing a course in order to pick up the lost scent of prey.
(figuratively) An act of alluding, returning, or reverting (to a subject previously mentioned, etc.); also, an act of evoking, or longing or pining for (a past era or event).

hark back meaning in Malayalam

hark back in Malayalam

to evoke, recall, call to mind: അനുസ്മരിക്കുക, ഓർത്തുനോക്കുക, ഓർമ്മപ്പെടുത്തുക, ഓർക്കുക, സ്മരിക്കുക, സ്മരണയിൽകൊണ്ടുവരുക

Synonyms of hark back

Forms of hark back

Verb
third-person singular present	harks back
present participle	harking back
past participle	harked back
past	harked back
Noun
plural	hark backs
alternative form	hark-back

Origin of hark back

From hark (“to listen attentively”) + back (“to or in a previous condition or place”, adverb), originally a hunting command to hounds meaning “Listen! Go back!”.

Words formed from hark back

hark-back

Words that rhyme with hark back

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about hark back

What does hark back mean?: Hark back means of hounds: to retrace a course in order to pick up the lost scent of prey.
What is hark back in Malayalam?: Hark back in Malayalam is അനുസ്മരിക്കുക, ഓർത്തുനോക്കുക, ഓർമ്മപ്പെടുത്തുക. See Hark back meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is hark back?: Hark back can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce hark back?: Hark back is pronounced /ˌhɑːk ˈbæk/ (UK).
What is the past tense of hark back?: The past tense of hark back is harked back.

Words near hark back in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: hark back (page history and authors); hark back (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hark back.wav.

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