Hark back
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Alternative form of hark-back.; An act of hounds retracing a course in order to pick up the lost scent of prey.
- 2 Alternative form of hark-back.; An act of alluding, returning, or reverting (to a subject previously mentioned, etc.); also, an act of evoking, or longing or pining for (a past era or event). figuratively
- 1 Of hounds: to retrace a course in order to pick up the lost scent of prey. intransitive
- 2 go back to something earlier wordnet
- 3 To return to where one has previously been; to retrace one's steps. broadly, intransitive
"He must have overshot the mark, and must hark back. So he turned his weary horse's head, and made his way back along the road to the spot where his spoor struck into it."
- 4 To allude, return, or revert (to a subject previously mentioned, etc.); also, to evoke, or long or pine for (a past era or event). figuratively, intransitive
"Mr. Flemyng, who had been assuaging his thirst with more champagne during the afternoon, had harked back to the subject of his morning's discourse, and was laying down an authoritative scheme of ethics, in the course of which sundry hard words, such as transcendentalism, pseudo-materialism and the like, lost a syllable here and there."
- 5 To call back (hounds); to recall. transitive
Example
More examples"He must have overshot the mark, and must hark back. So he turned his weary horse's head, and made his way back along the road to the spot where his spoor struck into it."
Etymology
From hark (“to listen attentively”) + back (“to or in a previous condition or place”, adverb), originally a hunting command to hounds meaning “Listen! Go back!”.