Hear

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /hɪə/

Definitions

1. To perceive sounds or spoken words through the ear ; to be informed or made aware of something through communication ; to listen attentively or pay attention to auditory information
2. To detect noises or voices with the ear ; to receive news or reports about an event or fact ; to attend or give consideration to spoken language or sounds
3. To register sounds or speech by the auditory sense ; to learn or discover as a result of conversation or testimony ; to actively listen or respond to auditory stimuli

Etymology: The verb "hear" is one of the oldest-sounding words in English, and its ancestry is a neat piece of ancient description: its Proto-Indo-European root combined "sharp" and "ear" into a phrase meaning roughly "to be sharp-eared." Those two roots were joined by a suffix that turned the phrase into a verb, so the word began life as a kind of description of a hearing ability rather than a plain action. That phrase passed down through the Germanic languages. Proto-Germanic produced a verb "hauzijanǭ," which in Old English became "hēran" and "hīeran," the ancestors of the modern form. Middle English then shortened and reshaped the word into forms like "heren" and "here," before the spelling settled into "hear" as English matured. Many relatives survive across the family. German has "hören," Dutch "horen," Swedish "höra," and Icelandic "heyra," all meaning the same thing. Even Greek offers a distant cousin in "akoúō," meaning "to hear," showing how far back this sharp-eared idea reaches.

Synonyms: listen, perceive, detect, discern, catch

Antonyms: ignore, overlook