Word: hearken (verb)

Associations

"hearken" means to listen carefully or pay close attention, often to something important or serious.

• "Hearken to my words" means "Listen carefully to what I say."
• In old stories or poems, you might see "hearken" used to tell listeners to pay attention.
• It is often used in formal or poetic language rather than everyday speech.

A similar word is "listen." The difference is that "hearken" sounds old-fashioned or formal, while "listen" is common and used in daily conversations.

Substitution

You can replace "hearken" with:

• listen (more common, everyday use)
• attend (to pay attention, more formal)
• heed (to pay careful attention, often to advice or warning)

Changing "hearken" to "listen" makes the sentence less formal. Using "heed" adds the idea of paying attention to advice or warning.

Deconstruction

"hearken" comes from Old English "heorcian," meaning "to listen." It is related to the word "hark," which is a shorter, similar word meaning "listen!" Both are old-fashioned and mostly used in literature or poetic speech.

Inquiry

• Can you think of a situation where someone might say "hearken" instead of "listen"?
• Have you ever heard someone use "hark" or "hearken" in a story or movie? What was the effect?
• How would the meaning change if you replaced "hearken" with "ignore"? What does that tell you about the importance of the word?