hark
Americanverb (used without object)
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harks,
present (3rd person singular)
-
harked,
past participle, past
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harking
present participle
verb (used with object)
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harks,
present (3rd person singular)
-
harked,
past participle, past
-
harking
present participle
noun
verb phrase
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
harksimple
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harkssimple
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have harkedperfect
-
has harkedperfect
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am harkingprogressive
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are harkingprogressive
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is harkingprogressive
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have been harkingperfect progressive
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has been harkingperfect progressive
Past
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harkedsimple
-
had harkedperfect
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was harkingprogressive
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were harkingprogressive
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had been harkingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of hark
1175–1225; Middle English herken, earlier herkien, Old English *heorcian; cognate with Old Frisian herkia, harkia; akin to Middle Dutch harken, Middle High German, German horchen. See hearken, hear
Explanation
Hark! This is an old fashioned word for “listen up!” Hark also means “to look back.” If you ride a horse to school, your behavior harks back to the days before cars. Hark is an order to pay attention and listen carefully, but it also means to go back to or remember something from the past. Hark has an interesting origin: it comes from the term "to hark back," which was when hunting dogs retraced the scent of their prey when they had lost it to try to pick it up again. Using hark these days sounds very literary and old fashioned. It harks back to ye olde times.
Vocabulary lists containing hark
Christmas Carol Vocab: A Lyrical Lexicon
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The Tempest
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Words for Carolers
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Indisputably, there are signs—some of which hark back to the dot-com era—that it is.
From Barron's ● May 29, 2026
There are passages for unaccompanied chorus that hark back to church music of the Renaissance and moments that seem like Dada before its time.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
Its title appears to hark back to the singer's 2012 hit Boyfriend, featuring the line "swag, swag, swag, on you".
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2025
People loved the vintage look of the pink toilets, which hark back to a time when bathrooms — whole houses, really — weren’t quite so bland and boring.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2025
He was a very plain-featured man, with nothing in his looks or in his dress that made memory cry hark.
From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
In both tone and structure, it harks back to the kind of theatrical properties that May and Lotta excelled in during the first half of the 20th century.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
Taking place in much drier conditions than the first night in Goyang Stadium, the first London date is largely focused on the Arirang album, which harks back to the band's hip-hop roots.
From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026
As forensic testing of the purported will begins, the fight for the tech executive’s legacy harks back to a contested will for billionaire Howard Hughes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
It harks back to the beginning of his career where he both studied the famous Catalan coach, who also worked at Bayern Munich, and his footballing education in his native Italy.
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026
He painted it from the heart: the scene harks back to his time in the Borinage, and it reflects his attachment to his own family and to the idea of family, to the ideal family.
From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman
The message harked back to the old U.S. policy of further entwining the American and Chinese economies, breaking with an approach pioneered during the first Trump administration to untangle business ties, largely for national-security reasons.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026
In February 1947 the couturier Christian Dior harked back to the rosy autochrome with his first collection, “Corolle,” named for the petaled cup of a flower and later christened the New Look.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025
And what a contrast it was as the 22-year-old Northern Ireland right-back was the shining symbol of a Liverpool display that harked back to their Premier League title-winning best as Real Madrid were swept aside.
From BBC ● Nov. 4, 2025
Over the years, Representative Henry Cuellar often harked back to the small house in Laredo, Texas.
From New York Times ● May 13, 2024
It also harked back to her own traditional Orthodox upbringing where the home was run by one dominating figure with strict rules and regulations.
From "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother" by James McBride
World Cup match on Spanish-language television network platforms, harking back to the 1994 World Cup, the first played in the U.S. that also attracted record TV audiences.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 14, 2026
The two leaders talked up the strength of the U.S.-China relationship, harking back to historical connections between the two nations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026
This mysterious commodity is the comfort blanket in times of turmoil - usually harking back to glory days and happier times.
From BBC ● Jan. 8, 2026
One by one, the queer and trans cast members share fictionalized personal stories, harking back to childhood moments before any declaration of identity was possible.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 8, 2025
As it was, though her eyes were constant to the screen, her attention was forever flagging, her thoughts harking back along old trails where heartaches haunted....
From Linda Lee, Incorporated A Novel by Louis Joseph Vance
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
