hearing of

Verb

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

1. To become aware of (a subject, person) through second-hand knowledge, or not through personal experience.
   • I first heard of the Electra complex when I was studying psychology.
2. (usually, "will not", "wouldn't") To permit or tolerate.
   • All the universities are sending in long petitions to restrict their production. Otherwise, they say, mankind will become extinct through lack of fertility. But the R. U. R. shareholders, of course, won't hear of it. All the governments, on the other hand, are clamoring for an increase in...c. 1921 (date written), Karel Čapek, translated by Paul Selver, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama […], Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1923, →OCLC, Act...