What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Harken vs Harking - What's the difference?

harken | harking |

As nouns the difference between harken and harking

is that harken is while harking is the act of harking back; a reversion or return.

As a verb harking is

.

harken

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • ‘to listen, hear, regard’, more common form in the US.
  • * 1833 :
    • Œnone Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
  • * 1883:
    • We were not many minutes on the road, though we sometimes stopped to lay hold of each other and harken . But there was no unusual sound...
  • * 1942 ,
    • ... whom he had revered and harkened to and loved and lost and grieved:
  • (figuratively, US) To hark back, to return or revert (to a subject etc.), to allude to, to evoke, to long or pine for (a past event or era).
  • * 1994 , David Coogan, Electronic Writing Centers: Computing the Field of Composition , page 4
    • The emerging consensus that writing was merely transcribed speech, then, harkened back to the pre-disciplinary, liberal arts college
  • * 2005 , Carol Padden, Tom L. Humphries, Inside Deaf Culture , page 48
    • Bell argued that the manual approach was "backwards," and harkened to a primitive age where humans used gesture and pantomime.

    Usage notes

    The bare form harken has been used since the 1980s, though some authorities frown upon this and prefer the traditional form hark back.

    References

    * * Merriam-Webster’s dictionary of English usage, 1995, p. 497 * “ Hark/Hearken”, Paul Brians, Common Errors in English Usage, (2nd Edition, November, 2008)

    Anagrams

    * ----

    harking

    English

    Verb

    (head)

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of harking back; a reversion or return.
  • * 1998 , W. Bruce Lincoln, Between Heaven and Hell
    • Despite such harkings to the Old Muscovite past, the trappings of European life inevitably followed once the Russians began to live in European settings.