Word.ws English Dictionary

harken

Syllables: hark·en/ˈhɑːk(ə)n/US/ˈhɑɹkən/

harken verb: to hark back, to return or revert (to a subject, etc.), to allude to, to evoke, to long or pine for (a past event or era). Also the alternative spelling of hearken.

Verb

harken (third-person singular simple present harkens, present participle harkening, simple past and past participle harkened)

  1. (US, figuratively, intransitive) To hark back, to return or revert (to a subject, etc.), to allude to, to evoke, to long or pine for (a past event or era).
    • Bell argued that the manual approach was "backwards," and harkened to a primitive age where humans used gesture and pantomime.2005, Carol Padden, Tom L. Humphries, Inside Deaf Culture, page 48

Proper noun capitalized: Harken

Harken (plural Harkens)

  1. A surname from German.

Also used as

harken is also the alternative spelling of hearken.

Forms of harken

Verb
third-person singular presentharkens
present participleharkening
past participleharkened
pastharkened
Proper noun
pluralHarkens

Origin of harken

See hearken

Borrowed from North German Harken.

Words formed from harken

Words that rhyme with harken

Questions about harken

What does harken mean?
Harken means to hark back, to return or revert (to a subject, etc.), to allude to, to evoke, to long or pine for (a past event or era).
What part of speech is harken?
Harken can be a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce harken?
Harken is pronounced /ˈhɑːk(ə)n/ (UK).
What is the past tense of harken?
The past tense of harken is harkened.

Words near harken in the dictionary

  1. Harkaway
  2. Harkaways
  3. harked
  4. harked back
  5. harkee
  6. harken
  7. harken back
  8. harkened
  9. harkened back
  10. harkenedst
  11. harkener

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: harken (page history and authors); Harken (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:

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

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