heed
/ˈhiːd/
heed noun: careful attention.
Noun
heed (uncountable)
- Careful attention.
- Then for a few minutes I did not pay much heed to what was said, being terribly straitened for room, and cramped with pain from lying so long in one place.[1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- attention, notice, observation, regard
Verb
heed (third-person singular simple present heeds, present participle heeding, simple past and past participle heeded)
- To guard, protect.
- To mind; to regard with care; to take notice of; to attend to; to observe.
- With pleasure Argus the musician heeds.1567, Ovid, translated by John Dryden, Metamorphoses, Book 1
- "It comes back to me that I wanted to say something to the driver and that I couldn't make him heed me."1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC
- To pay attention, care.
heed meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
heed in Hindi
- to heed
- ध्यान देना dhyān denā
heed in Tamil
- கருதிப் பேணு, கருத்தில் கொள், கவனி
heed in Urdu
- to heed
- دھیان دینا dhyān denā
heed in Bengali
- মনোযোগ দেওয়া, গ্রাহ্য করা, সতর্ক হওয়া
More languagesFewer languages
- heed in Malayalam
- കണക്കിലെടുക്കുക, വകവയ്ക്കുക, മനസ്സിരുത്തുക
- heed in Kannada
- ಎಚ್ಚರಿಕೆ, ಜಾಗರೂಕತೆ, ಗಮನ, ಲಕ್ಷ್ಯ
- heed in Sanskrit
- सूर्क्ष् sūrkṣ, रक्ष् rakṣ, दॄ dṝ
Examples of heed in a sentence
- The help tended to be officious, the rules, if heeded, restrictive, and the management meddlesome.1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168:
- Tolokonnikova not only tried to adjust to life in the penal colony but she even tried to heed the criticism levied at her by colony representatives during a parole hearing.2013 September 23, Masha Gessen, “Life in a Russian Prison”, in New York Times, retrieved 24 Sep 2013:
Synonyms of heed
16 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- pay attention
- pay heed
- pick up what someone is putting down
- privy
- take heed
- take notice
- mind
- reck
- becare
- bother
- care
- concern oneself
- trouble oneself
- worry
- attend
- pass
Forms of heed
| third-person singular present | heeds |
|---|---|
| present participle | heeding |
| past participle | heeded |
| past | heeded |
Origin of heed
From Middle English heden, from Old English hēdan (“to heed, take care, observe, attend, guard, take charge, take possession, receive”), from Proto-West Germanic *hōdijan (“to heed, guard”), from Proto-Indo-European *kadʰ- (“to heed, protect”). Cognate with West Frisian hoedje (“to heed”), Dutch hoeden (“to heed”), German hüten (“to heed”).
Words formed from heed
Phrases with heed
- tee heed
- gave heed
- paid heed
- pays heed
- took heed
- given heed
- gives heed
- taken heed
- takes heed
- giving heed
- paying heed
- taking heed
3 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with heed
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- weed
- proceed
- stampede
- concede
- accede
- deed
- exceed
- need
- bede
- knead
- mislead
- plead
- rede
- swede
- cede
- creed
- godspeed
- intercede
- keyed
- leed
- meed
- precede
- recede
- tumbleweed
- a friend in need is a friend indeed
- beread
- greed
- he'd
- indeed
- interbreed
- kneed
- mead
- secede
- she'd
- sneed
- steed
- supersede
- underfeed
- we'd
- ye'd
- agreed
- anasheed
- aniseed
- atheed
- caid
- co-feed
- cofeed
- counterplead
Questions about heed
- What does heed mean?
- Heed means careful attention.
- What is heed in Hindi?
- Heed in Hindi is ध्यान देना (dhyān denā). See Heed meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use heed in a sentence?
- The help tended to be officious, the rules, if heeded, restrictive, and the management meddlesome.
- What part of speech is heed?
- Heed can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce heed?
- Heed is pronounced /ˈhiːd/.
Words near heed in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: heed (page history and authors); ध्यान देना (Hindi) (page history and authors); heed (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); دھیان دینا (Urdu) (page history and authors); Heed (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); heed (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); heed (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); दॄ (Sanskrit) (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-heed.ogg.
Cite this entry: “heed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/heed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.