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hear

verb

Simple meaning

To perceive sounds through the ear.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

hir
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈhɪɹ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. intransitivestative

    To perceive sounds through the ear.

  2. Perceive (sound) via the auditory sense

  3. transitivestative

    To perceive (a sound, or something producing a sound) with the ear, to recognize (something) in an auditory way.

  4. transitive

    To exercise this faculty intentionally; to listen to.

  5. transitive

    To receive information about; to come to learn of.

  6. Listen and pay attention

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: (intransitive, stative) To perceive sounds through the ear.

Used this way, hear is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use hear

  • “We heard nothing from our son for five years.”verb
  • “The jury had heard all the evidence.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

ever hear

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • hearingnounInflected form

    A proceeding (usually by a court) where evidence is taken for the purpose of determining an issue of fact and reaching a decision based on that evidence.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • hear outverbCompound term

    Listen to every detail and give a full hearing to.

  • hearing aidnounCompound term

    An electronic device that amplifies sound and is worn to compensate for poor hearing.

  • hearing disordernounCompound term

    Impairment of the sense of hearing.

  • hearing dognounCompound term

    Dog trained to assist the deaf by signaling the occurrence of certain sounds.

  • hearing examinernounCompound term

    An official appointed by a government agency to conduct an investigation or administrative hearing so that the agency can exercise its statutory powers.

  • hearing impairmentnounCompound term

    Impairment of the sense of hearing.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: to perceive sounds through the ear

listenArchaic

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.