hark back
verb
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Hark Back Got Its Start in Hunting
Hark, a very old word meaning "to listen," was used as a cry in hunting. The master of the hunt might cry "Hark! Forward!" or "Hark! Back!" The cries became set phrases, both as nouns and verbs. Thus, a "hark back" was a retracing of a route by dogs and hunters, and to "hark back" was to turn back along the path. From its use in hunting, the verb soon acquired its current figurative meanings. The variants hearken and harken (also very old words meaning “to listen”) are also used, with and without back, as synonyms of hark back.
Examples of hark back in a Sentence
Sam Cochran, Architectural Digest, 11 Aug. 2025
After spending a few days at Chevening, Vance and his family will head to the Cotswolds, an area that has become popular with wealthy American tourists because of its quaint villages, stone cottages and rural countryside that hark back to old England.
—Danica Kirka, Arkansas Online, 9 Aug. 2025
Leo also offered a novelty by singing the Regina Caeli prayer, a Latin prayer said during the Easter season that recent popes would usually just recite and harked back to the old Latin Mass of the past.
—Nicole Winfield, Los Angeles Times, 11 May 2025
Cherry has been in the keyboard business for decades and its pedigree harks back to the earliest days of home and business computing explosion in the early 1980s.
—Mark Sparrow, Forbes.com, 29 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for hark back
Cite this Entry
“Hark back.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hark%20back. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025.
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