Word.ws English Dictionary

harken back

harken back is the alternative spelling of hearken back.

Meaning of hearken back

Verb

hearken back (third-person singular simple present hearkens back, present participle hearkening back, simple past and past participle hearkened back)

  1. (proscribed, sometimes) Synonym of hark back (“to allude, return, or revert (to a subject previously mentioned, etc.); also, to evoke, or long or pine for (a past era or event)”).
    • From the opening shots of the anonymous young Winterfell boy rushing to catch a glimpse of Jon Snow and Queen Daenerys Targaryen, hearkening back to those moments of the very first episode in which Arya rushed to do the same with an approaching King Robert Baratheon, the series is calling back to...2019 April 14, Alex McLevy, “Winter is Here on Game of Thrones’ Final Season Premiere (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 18 Dec 2020
    Synonyms:
    hark back

Forms of harken back

third-person singular presentharkens back
present participleharkening back
past participleharkened back
pastharkened back

Questions about harken back

What is harken back the alternative spelling of?
Harken back is the alternative spelling of hearken back.

Words near harken back in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: harken back (page history and authors); hearken back (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: “harken back.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/harken_back. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.