Showing results for "heard"

• past tense form of hear.
• past participle of hear.

heard

American  

[hurd] / hɜrd /

verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of hear.

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adjective

1. perceived by the ear or learned by hearing.

   Linguists have many theories about how we comprehend heard utterances, but less to say about language production.

   Review your notes and add any comments while the heard information is fresh in your memory.

Other Word Forms

• half-heard
  adjective
• well-heard
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of heard

First recorded before 900 heard for def. 1, in 1480–90 heard for def. 2; hear ( def. ) + -(e)d ¹ ( def. ) for verb sense; hear ( def. ) + -(e)d ² ( def. ) for adjective sense

Explanation

If your dog trembled and shook at the sound of fireworks, he might have thought he heard gunshots. Heard means "perceived by the sense of hearing." If you detected a sound using your ears, you heard it. Heard is the past tense of the verb hear, and it's also an adjective when you use it to describe a particular sound, as when you say, "The music was even lovelier since it was mysteriously heard from afar." A word you might confuse with heard is herd, which means "group of animals."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

heard

Paxton filed a lawsuit in Amarillo, more than 700 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, where Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk has heard nearly all cases since Trump appointed him to the bench in 2018.

From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2026

MarketWatch reached out to all of these firms for comment, but hasn’t heard back.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 15, 2026

The inquiry also heard staff were relying on infrared Oxevision cameras to help monitor patients, but poor wi-fi connections limited access to information and emergency alarms were muted.

From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026

Joe Lyou, president of nonprofit Coalition for Clean Air, told Sen. Padilla that he has heard of people becoming sick in the weeks after the event.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026

“This makes no sense. I would have heard about this many kids being killed,” I conclude.

From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold