hear of

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English

Verb

hear of (third-person singular simple present hears of, present participle hearing of, simple past and past participle heard of)

  1. To become aware of (a subject, person) through second-hand knowledge, or not through personal experience.
    I first heard of the Electra complex when I was studying psychology.
    Who is Tamara Williams? I've never heard of her.
    • 1965, Frank Herbert, “Book Three: The Prophet”, in Dune (Science Fiction), New York: Ace Books, →OCLC, page 402:
      It came from the southeast, a distant hissing, a sandwhisper. Presently he saw the faraway outline of the creature’s track against the dawnlight and realized he had never before seen a maker this large, never heard of one this size. It appeared to be more than half a league long, and the rise of the sandwave at its cresting head was like the approach of a mountain.
      This is nothing I have seen by vision or in life, Paul cautioned himself.
  2. (with "won't", "will not", "wouldn't", etc.) To permit or tolerate.
    • c. 1921 (date written), Karel Čapek, translated by Paul Selver, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama , Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1923, →OCLC, Act 2:
      All the universities are sending in long petitions to restrict their production. Otherwise, they say, mankind will become extinct through lack of fertility. But the R. U. R. shareholders, of course, won't hear of it. All the governments, on the other hand, are clamoring for an increase in production, to raise the standards of their armies. And all the manufacturers in the world are ordering Robots like mad.
    • 1966, Margaret Laurence, A Jest of God:
      “The furniture – whatever could we possibly do about all this furniture? I refuse to sell it, Rachel. I won't hear of it.”

Translations