Word.ws English Dictionary

heard

UK/ˈhɜːd/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northumbria/hɔːd/

heard is the simple past and past participle of hear.

heard is the obsolete form of herd.

Meaning of hear

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive, stative) To perceive sounds through the ear.
    • I was deaf, but now I can hear.
  2. (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
  3. (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
  4. (transitive) To listen favourably to; to grant (a request etc.).
    • Eventually the king chose to hear her entreaties.
  5. (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
  6. To be contacted by.
    • I haven't heard from you in a while; how have you been?

See all 10 meanings of hear

Meaning of herd

Noun (1)

herd (plural herds)

  1. (collective) A number of domestic animals assembled together under the watch or ownership of a keeper.
    • a herd of cattle
  2. (collective) Any collection of animals gathered or travelling in a company.
    • Zakouma is the last place on Earth where you can see more than a thousand elephants on the move in a single, compact herd.2007 March, J. Michael Fay, “Ivory Wars: Last Stand in Zakouma”, in National Geographic, section 47
  3. (derogatory, usually) A crowd, a mass of people or things; a rabble.
    • I was never one to follow the herd.
  4. (collective) A collection of things, especially vehicles.
    • Herds of buses spread across the streets.

Noun (2)

herd (plural herds)

  1. (archaic) Someone who keeps a group of domestic animals.
    • Near-synonym: herdsman
    Synonyms:
    herder, herdsman

See all 14 meanings of herd

Adjective

heard (not comparable)

  1. That has been perceived aurally.
    • [T]he following are some examples of the types of heard information that can be used to distinguish some of the languages in Singapore, namely Malay and Singapore English.2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 10

Interjection

  1. (colloquial) I understand; gotcha.

Proper noun capitalized: Heard

Heard (plural Heards)

  1. A surname.

Forms of heard

Verb
alternative pronunciation-spelling (dialectal)'eard
alternative pronunciation-spelling (dialectal)heerd
alternative pronunciation-spelling (dialectal)hoid
alternative pronunciation-spelling (dialectal)yeard
alternative pronunciation-spelling (dialectal)yerd
Noun
pluralheards
Proper noun
pluralHeards

Origin of heard

Occupational Middle English surname for shepherds or cowherds, from herde, from Old English heord (“herd”).

Words formed from heard

Phrases with heard

7 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with heard

35 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about heard

What does heard mean?
Heard means that has been perceived aurally.
What is heard the simple past and past participle of?
Heard is the simple past and past participle of hear.
What part of speech is heard?
Heard can be an adjective, an interjection or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce heard?
Heard is pronounced /ˈhɜːd/ (UK).

Words near heard in the dictionary

  1. hearability
  2. hearable
  3. hearably
  4. hearbe
  5. hearbes
  6. heard
  7. Heard County
  8. heard from
  9. Heard Island and McDonald Islands
  10. heard of
  11. heard oneself think

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: heard (page history and authors); Heard (page history and authors); hear (page history and authors); herd (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: en-us-heard.ogg.

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