hear
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "hear", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "hear" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "hear" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
hear is aEnglishverb. It means: To perceive sounds through the ear. Pronounced /ˈhɪə/. It ranks #588 in English word frequency. Often confused with HR and her.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hear |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈhɪə/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #588 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hear is 4 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈhɪə/. Corpus data places it at rank #588 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 4 documented wrong-spelling variants for hear, with forms such as "ehar", "haer", and "hearr". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "HR", "her", "hey", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱ- Proto-Indo-European *h₂ew- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₂ṓws Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *h₂ḱh₂owsyéti Proto-Germanic *hauzijaną Proto-West Germanic *hauʀijan Old English hīeran M… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is hear, spelled H-E-A-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To perceive sounds through the ear.
- 2To perceive (a sound, or something producing a sound) with the ear, to recognize (something) in an auditory way.
- 3To exercise this faculty intentionally; to listen to.
- 4To listen favourably to; to grant (a request etc.).
- 5To receive information about; to come to learn of.
- 6To be contacted by.
- 7To listen to (a person, case) in a court of law; to try.
- 8To sympathize with; to understand the feelings or opinion of.
- 9To study under.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱ- Proto-Indo-European *h₂ew- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₂ṓws Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *h₂ḱh₂owsyéti Proto-Germanic *hauzijaną Proto-West Germanic *hauʀijan Old English hīeran Middle English heren English hear From Middle English heren, from Old English hīeran (“to hear”), from Proto-West Germanic *hauʀijan, from Proto-Germanic *hauzijaną (“to hear”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ḱh₂owsyéti (“to be sharp-eared”), from *h₂eḱ- (“sharp”) + *h₂ows- (“ear”) + *-yéti (denominative suffix). Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian heere (“to hear”), West Frisian hearre (“to hear”), Dutch horen (“to hear”), German hören (“to hear”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål høre (“to hear”), Norwegian Nynorsk høyra (“to hear”), Swedish höra (“to hear”), Icelandic heyra (“to hear”), Ancient Greek ἀκούω (akoúō, “I hear”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ehar,haer,hearr,hhear
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for hear
Misspelling Variants of "hear"
Frequency rank: #588 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter H in our English index: