hark back

verb

harked back; harking back; harks back

intransitive verb

: to turn back to an earlier topic or circumstance

: to go back to something as an origin or source

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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

the new stadium, designed for nostalgic appeal, harks back to the intimate ballparks of yore

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

At Bottega Veneta, the joyful celebration was staged at Liuyang in Hunan Province, which was the historic birthplace of fireworks and harks back to the Tang Dynasty. —

Tianwei Zhang, WWD, 10 Jan. 2025 Participants dress in masks and costumes, often made from crepe paper and cardboard, meant to hark back to the original costumes once made from sponges and newspapers—items readily available to them that society also often discarded. —

Sasha C. Wells / Made By History, TIME, 26 Dec. 2024 Cherry has probably been around as long as those original IBM keyboards and the German company still makes excellent keycaps and keyboards that hark back to an age when products were signed off by engineers rather than accountants. —

Mark Sparrow, Forbes, 12 Dec. 2024 The affair harks back to the 1990s, when deadly corporate turf battles were commonplace in Russia as huge swathes of property were redistributed after the fall of the Soviet Union. —

Reuters, CNN, 19 Sep. 2024 See all Example Sentences for hark back