[Sometimes words die out of fashion. But sometimes those words are good words, words with a certain appeal that can't be denied forever. Those words should be brought back into fashion, used frequently and used often. These are those words.]
Word:
Hark
(Preferably said with an exclamation point--Hark!)
Definition:
verb (transitive)
To listen attentively to; to hear; to pay attention to.
Origin:
The OED tells us it comes from the Middle English herkien, which is in turn from the Old English heorcian, which corresponds to the Old Frisian (Frisian? Think: Old Netherlands) herkia...and my god, this goes on for miles and miles and miles...
...and the Old Frisian comes from the West Frisian herckjen/harckjen...
...as well as the North Frisian harke...
...which is all related to the Middle Dutch horken/horcken...
...coming from the Flemish dialect heurken/horken...
(Seriously, go grab a snack, hit the bathroom--this etymology is HUGE.)
...and the Middle High German and modern German horchen...
...which evolves from the Old High German hôrechen...
...and that was just the same as the Middle High German hôrchen
...and the OED wants you to know that the funky-looking "o" with a hat perhaps owes its long ô to the influence of hôren, which means to hear.
If you're still paying attention, you're not only an etymology nerd, you're also lonely.
Hark first appears in known use during the year 1175, specifically within the following small passage:
Bluðeliche he wule herkien þet þe preost him leið on.
Half of those are real letters. I swear.
Most obscure UrbanDictionary.com definition of 'hark':
2. A person in a state of drunkardness that results in inconceivably retarded actions.
4. To sing in the plummy rock baritone style of English singer-songwriter James Harker, halfway between the untrained manliness of Nick Cave and the preppy refinement of Josh Groban.
5. The sound a cat makes when throwning (sic) up a hairball, or the body movements made while the cat is yarking up a hairball.
9. Dweebish freak with a dependency (addiction) on Pepto-Bismol.
10. A young, Indian male that is so sexy. He has the traits of athletic, intelligent, funny, and attractive (sic). The best male you could find in the world. [Ed.: Hubba-hubba.]
Used in a holiday sentence:
1. Hark! The herald angels sing!
History used in holiday songs:
Charles Wesley was an important, early leader in the Methodist movement and an occasional 18th century writer who had an inner hippie with some great song lyrics just ready to burst out.
In 1739, Wesley released a book called Hymns and Sacred Poems, which included Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. Wesley wanted Hark! to be set to slow, somber music (picture Silent Night, but with lots of yelling of Hark! interspersed)--which was quickly ignored and given the mid-tempo beat we know today.
Even the first couplet we know of the song (the only lines you can actually sing right now to yourself while you read this) aren't Wesley's lyrics. Wesley's original lines were Hark! how all the welkin rings / Glory to the King of Kings. George Whitefield, an Anglican preacher who apparently could really keep a tune--and also an associate of Wesley's--had better taste in music. Whitefield changed the first two lines of the song to what we know today.
The music accompaniment is nothing like the original 1739 mid-tempo variety either. Felix Mendelsshon's music for an entirely separate cantata (Festgesang) written over a hundred years later was adopted to be the background tune for Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. Musician William H. Cummings, the chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral, took this liberty with Mendelsshon's music and Wesley's lyrics, blending them together in 1855.
In essence, Cummings sampled music. He was the Jay-Z of his day.
Word Awesomeness Scale (1 to 5):
Four.
It'd be better if an angel actually showed up to sing when you used it.
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