hear 
Dere frende Merlin, I haue herdf my that ye loved 
well my fader, Vterpendragon. Merlin (E. E. T. S.), i. 114. 
Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery [craft]. 
Shak., M. for M., iv. 2. 
I have heard say (again to take a trilling matter) that 
at the beginning of this century it was a subject of serious, 
nay, of angry controversy, whether it began with January 
1800, or January 1801. 
J. H. Mewiiian, Grain, of Assent, p. 363. 
To hear tell Of, to hear some or any one talk about ; lis- 
ten to what is said about. [Obsolete or colloquial.) 
She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. 
Shak., Much Ado, 11. 1. 
II. intrans. 1. To possess the sense of hear- 
ing; have that form of sense-perception which 
is dependent on the ear. 
The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made 
even both of them. Prov. xx. 12. 
You are so sadly deaf, my dear, 
What shall I do to make you hear ? 
Cowper, Mutual Forbearance. 
2. To listen ; barken ; give heed. 
Bear ye now, O house of David. Isa. vil. IS. 
Dost thou hear? gav'st thou my letter to Julia? 
Shak., T. G. of V., i. 1. 
When themes like these employ the poet's tongue, 
I hear as mute as if a syren sung. 
Cowper, Table-Talk, 1. 199. 
3. To be told; learn by report: as, so I hear. 
When the Queen heard of the King's Proclamation, she 
knew there was no returning for her into England with- 
out some good Assistance. Baker, Chronicles, p. 111. 
Charm'd with the sight, the world, I cried, 
Shall hear of this thy deed. 
Cowper, Dog and Water- Lily. 
4f. To be heard, or heard of ; be reported. 
I will no more of these superfluous excesses. They are 
these make me hear BO ill both In town and country. 
B. Jonson, Love Restored. 
Our King and Parliament have been at great strife who 
should obtaine most Justice ; If they would now strive 
who should shew most Mercy, it would heare well through- 
out the world. Jv. Ward, Simple Cobler, p. 70. 
Hear, hear ! an exclamation used to call attention to the 
words of a speaker, and usually to express approbation. 
I(ne, etc.) will not hear of, I (he, etc.) will not enter- 
tain the Idea of ; I (he, etc.) will not have to do with. 
Be will not hear of drugs. B. Jonson, Volpone, i. 1. 
TO hear to, to yield or consent to ; heed ; regard : as, to 
hear to reason ; he refused to hear to the arrangement. 
He will not hear to the suggestion that they may be 
giving account of different battles. 
Stove, Origin of Books of the Bible, p. 304. 
heard 1 (herd). Preterit and past participle of 
hear. 
heard 2 t, An obsolete spelling of herd?. 
heardgroomet, See herdgroom. 
beared. An obsolete or dialectal form of heard 1 . 
hearer (her'er), re. [< ME. herer, herere (= G. 
horer), < heren, hear.] One who hears; one 
who listens to what is orally delivered by an- 
other ; an auditor ; one of an audience. 
Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only. 
Jas. 1. 22. 
They thought they must have died, they were so bad ; 
Their peevish hearers almost wish they had. 
Cowper, Conversation, 1. 324. 
hearing (her'ing), . [< ME. heringe, herunge 
(= OHG. horunga); verbal n. of hear, v.~] 1. 
Perception of sound; the act of perceiving 
sound ; the faculty or sense by which sound is 
perceived; audition: one of the five external 
senses. See earl. 
But their loud instruments doe rather affright then de- 
light the hearing. Sandys, Travailes, p. 66. 
Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, 
One set slow bell will seem to toll. 
Tennyson, In Memoriam, Ivil. 
2. Audience; opportunity to be heard. 
I come with gracious offers from the king, 
If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect 
Shak,, 1 Hen. IV., iv. S. 
The excitement of the House was such that no other 
speaker could obtain a hearing; and the debate was ad- 
journed. Macattlay, Warren Hastings. 
3. A judicial investigation of a suit at law; at- 
tention to and consideration of the testimony 
and arguments in a cause between parties, with 
a view to a just decision: especially used of 
trial without a jury. 
I have a couple of brawling neighbours, that, I'll assure 
you, will not agree, and you shall have the hearing of their 
matter. Beau, and Ft., Coxcomb, v. 3. 
His last offences to us 
Shall have judicious hearing. Shak., Cor., v. 5. 
4. Distance within which sound may be heard ; 
ear-shot : as, he was not within hearing. 
Thou hast spoken In mine hearing. Job xxxiii. 8. 
Where stood that renowned City of Corinth, in hearing 
of both seas, and having a port unto either. 
Sandys, Travailes, p. 7. 
2755 
For I never whisper'd a private affair 
Within the hearing of cat or mouse . . . 
But I heard it shouted at once from the top of the house. 
Tennyson, Maud, xxvii. 
5. A scolding; a lecture. [Colloq. or Scotch.] 
She aye ordered a dram, or a sowp kale, or something to 
us, after she had gi'en us a hearing on our duties. 
Scott, Old Mortality, xiv. 
6. Something heard; something to hear; re- 
port; news. [Obsolete or Scotch.] 
In trueth this which you tell is a most shameful! hear- 
ing. Spenser, State of Ireland. 
F ran. Lady, I've lov'd you long. 
Ric. 'Tis a good hearing, sir. 
Middleton (and others), The Widow, i. 2. 
It was, in the Scotch phrase, a good hearing, and put 
me in good-humor with the world. 
R. L. Stevenson, Inland Voyage, p. 115. 
7. Attendance on preaching. [Prov. Eng.] 
I have learned since, that he ... has a mother, be- 
tween seventy and eighty, who walks, every Sunday, eight 
miles to hearing, as they call it, and back again. 
Cowper, Works, VII. 38. 
Hard of hearing. See hard. Hearing In presence, 
in the Court of Session of Scotland, a formal hearing of 
counsel before all the judges. Organs of hearing, the 
auditory apparatus; the ear and associate structures, 
adapted to receive vibrations of the air, called sound- 
waves. These organs consist, in the higher animals, es- 
sentially of the end-organs of a special nerve, bathed in a 
fluid usually containing some hard body or otolith, and 
receiving and being excited to molecular motion by impacts 
of sound-waves conducted to the nervous parts through 
special passages closed by a membrane, furnished in many 
cases with a special set of auditory ossicles, and usually 
communicating with the pharynx through a vestige of the 
first postoral visceral cleft. See earl. 
hearingless (her'ing-les), a. [< hearing + -less.'] 
Deaf. 
hearken, hearkener. See harken, harkener. . 
hearont, n. An obsolete spelling of heron. 
hearsalt, [By apheresis for rehearsal.'] Re- 
hearsal. Spenser. 
hearsay (her'sa), . and a. [= D. (het) hooren 
zeggen = MLG. hor-seggen = G. horensagen; < 
hear + inf. say 1 . The verb phrase, chiefly in 
the pret., occurs in ME. (herd sain) and AS. 
(hyrde secgan)."] I. n. Information communi- 
cated by another; report; common talk; ru- 
mor; gossip. 
Not having had, as yet, an opportunity of looking at the 
Salisbury codex, I can judge of it only from hearsay. 
Rock, Church of our Fathers i. 6. 
Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whisper, 
Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her forward. 
Longfellow, Evangeline, ii. 1. 
Let a prejudice be bequeathed, carried in the air, adopt- 
ed by hearsay, . . . however it may come, these minds 
will give it habitation. 
George Eliot, Mill on the Floss, vi. 12. 
II. a. Of or pertaining to or depending upon 
hearsay, or the talk of others ; told or given at 
second hand. 
Liable to be imposed upon by the hearsay relations of 
credulity. Goldsmith, Pref. to Brookes's Nat. Hist. 
She blamed herself for telling hearsay tales. 
Tennyson, Merlin and Vivien. 
Hearsay evidence, evidence at second hand ; testimony 
the relevancy of which does not consist in what the wit- 
ness giving it himself perceived, but in what he derived 
by information from another person. It is generally ex- 
cluded as objectionable, because its credibility cannot be 
estimated from the credit to be given to the witness, but 
depends on the veracity or competency of the third per- 
son, not before the court. Thus, if a witness testifies that 
a bystander told him that the prisoner struck the deceased, 
this is hearsay, for its credibility depends on the bystand- 
er, and he should be produced; but if he testifies that the 
accused admitted to him that he had struck the deceased, 
or, before the blow, told him he intended to strike it, or 
testifies that he heard the outcry of the deceased on be- 
ing struck, it is not hearsay. Exceptions to the rule are 
made in respect to some forms of tradition as to facts of 
family history, and boundaries, and dying declarations 
(which see, under declaration). 
In some cases (as in proof of any general customs, or 
matters of common tradition or repute), the courts admit 
of hearsay evidence, or an account of what persons de- 
ceased have declared in their life-time. 
Blackstone, Com., III. xxiii. 
hearse 1 (hers), n. [As a historical term, refer- 
ring to obsolete senses, and as a term of forti- 
fication (< F. herse), spelled herse (see herse 1 ) ; 
early mod. E. only herse, < ME. herse, hers, herce, 
a frame for lights in a church service or at a 
funeral, a funeral pageant, a bier, a pall, also a 
dead body (the sense of 'carriage for conveying 
the dead' being more modern), the frame being 
so called from its likeness to a harrow, < OF. 
herce, a harrow, also a grated portcullis (ML. 
hercia, hersia), F. herse, a harrow, a portcullis 
(herse^, 1), triangular candlestick, = It. erpice, 
a harrow, < L. hirpex (hirpic-), also spelled ir- 
pex, a harrow: a rustic word, perhaps a cor- 
ruption of Gr. dpiraf, a kind of grappling-iron 
(also a rake ?), akin to apTrayri, a rake : see Har- 
heart 
pax.] If. A canopy, usually of openwork or 
trellis, set over a bier, or more rarely over a 
permanent tomb, and used especially to support 
candles which were lighted at times of cere- 
mony. A medieval iron hearse, said to be unique, stands 
in the aisle of Tanfleld church, Durham, England, over a 
tomb of the Marmion family. 
In the Vestrye ther ys an herse that stonde full of 
Chalys . . . wher in ys closyd many grett Reliquies. 
Torkington, Diarie of Eng. Travell, p. 9. 
2. A bier; a bier with a coffin. 
Set down your honourable load, 
If honour may be shrouded in a hearse. 
Shak., Rich. III., 1. 2. 
Hugh Bishop of Lincoln lying very sick, he not only 
went to visit him ; but being dead, was one of the three 
Kings . . . that carried his Herse upon their Shoulders. 
Baker, Chronicles, p. 74. 
Decked with flowers, a simple hearse 
To the churchyard forth they bear. 
Longfellow, Blind Girl of Castel-Cuille, ill. 
3. A carriage for conveying a dead person to 
the grave. The usual modern form has an oblong- 
roofed body, often with glass sides, and a door at the 
back for the insertion of the coffin. 
4f. A temporary monument erected over a grave. 
5t. A dirge or threnody, or a solemn recital 
or chant. 
For the faire Damzel from the holy herse 
Her love-sicke hart to other thoughts did steale. 
Spenser, F. Q., III. ii. 48. 
6. In her., a charge resembling a portcullis or 
a harrow. 
hearse 1 (hers), v. t. ; pret. and pp. hearsed, ppr. 
hearsing. [< hearse*, .] To put on or in a 
hearse. 
Would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in 
her coffin. Shale., M. of V., iii. 1. 
0, answer me. 
Let me not burst in ignorance ! but tell, 
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death, 
Have burst their cerements ! Shak., Hamlet, L 4. 
hearse 2 (hers), a. A Scotch form of hoarse. 
hearse-cloth (hers'kloth), n. [< ME. herse- 
eloth, < herse, hearse, + cloth."] A pall ; a cloth 
to cover a corpse when laid upon a bier. 
The grave, meanwhile, was shrouded with a funeral pall 
or hearse-cloth; and wax tapers, more or less in number, 
were set lighted all about it. 
Rock, Church of our Fathers, III. i. 100. 
Suitable to a hearse, 
hearse-like (hers'lik), a. 
and hence to a funeral. 
If you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many 
hearse-lilce airs as carols. Bacon, Adversity (ed. 1887). 
heart (hart), . [Early mod. E. also hart, harte; 
< ME. hart, harte, herte, < AS. heorte (gen. hem- 
tan), f ., = OS. herta = OFries. herte, hirte = OD. 
herte, hert, D. hart = MLG. herte, LG. hert = 
OHG. herza, MHG. herze, G. here (gen. herzens), 
neut., = Icel. hjarta = Sw. hjerta = Dan. hjerte 
= Goth, hairto (gen. hairtons), f., = Ir. cridhe 
= Gael, cridhe, cri, heart, = W. craidd, center, 
3= Corn, kreiz = Bret, kreizen = L. cor (cord-), 
neut., = Gr. Kapdia, also Kpa6ta, f ., also tiijp, neut., 
= OBulg. sriiattse, Bulg. sriidtse = Slov. Serv. 
srdtse = Bohem. srdtce = Pol. serce (sertee) = 
Buss. serdtse, heart; possibly = Skt. qrad, trust, 
connected with L. credere, trust (see under 
credit) ; the Skt. hrid, hridaya, heart, shows a 
discordant initial. From the L. form cor (cord-) 
are ult. E. cordate, Corel, courage, etc., accord, 
concord, discord, record, etc., and from the Gr. 
Kap6ia ult. E. cardiac, cardialgia, etc., pericar- 
dium, etc.] 1. The principal organ of the cir- 
culation of the blood in man and other ani- 
mals; the physiological center of the blood- 
vascular sys- 
tem. It is a hoi- 
low muscular or 
otherwise contrac- 
tile organ which 
receives blood in 
its interior, and 
by contractions or 
pulsations drives 
it out again, and 
thus keeps up thu 
circulation of this 
fluid. In its sim- 
plestform, as in the 
early embryo of a 
vertebrate and in 
many invertebrate 
animals, it is sim- 
ply an expanded 
part or expansion 
In the course of a 
blood-vessel, ca- 
pable of beating, 
pulsating, or alter- 
nately dilating and 
contracting, and so 
acting upon the 
contained fluid 
Heart of Dugong (Halicore dugong}, show- 
ing cleft apex ; dorsal view, the cavities laid 
open. ST. rightventricle; Lv, left ventricle : 
Vcss, left superior vena cava; ycsd, right 
superior vena cava ; I^ct, vena cava inferior ; 
/Vr', inner end of a cascal diverticulum of the 
riyht .iiiriile, into which a style is introduced 
and which represents the foramen ovalc ; O, 
auricular septum. 
