heart
Pluralhearts
Pluralhearts
Formshearts, hearting, hearted
- 1A muscular organ in the chest that pumps blood through the body, long regarded as the source of feeling.
Surgeons worked for hours to repair the damaged heart.
A healthy heart pumps about five liters of blood each minute.
Note
William Harvey, whose 1628 book explained the heart's pumping, admitted he had first almost believed its motion was known to God alone. The old belief that it houses feeling lives on in the emotional sense.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- William Harvey published his explanation of the heart's pumping in 1628. history.rcp.ac.uk
- Harvey described initially almost believing that only God could comprehend the heart's motion. webusers.imj-prg.fr
- The heart was historically regarded as housing emotion. en.wikipedia.org
- 2The inner source of feelings such as love, joy, grief, and courage, often regarded as the seat of one's character and good nature.
For all his gruff talk, the old mechanic has a heart of gold.
Her heart was heavy with grief as she packed up her father's house.
UsageCommon in set phrases: a heart of gold, with all my heart, break someone's heart.
Note
The heart as the place where feelings live, and by extension the feelings themselves. Marlowe's Tamburlaine shows "the furies of his heart" in his eyes, and Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850) finds there "a calm despair." It leans toward a good sense, but it can hold hate as readily as love. Occasionally it reaches past feeling to the understanding or the will.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Christopher Marlowe wrote Tamburlaine the Great. gutenberg.org
- The play describes Tamburlaine's heart's furies in his eyes. Agydas speaks the passage; “furies” is the octavo reading. gutenberg.org
- Alfred Tennyson's In Memoriam was first published in 1850. en.wikisource.org
- In Memoriam locates “a calm despair” in the lyrical speaker's heart. en.wikisource.org
- 3The central part, essence, or core of something.
The new library sits in the heart of the city.
At the heart of the dispute lies a simple misunderstanding.
UsageUsually in the heart of a place and at the heart of an issue or problem.
Similarcore, essence, crux, gist, substance
Note
Robert Barr's The Strong Arm (1899) adds the usual intensifier, "the very heart of the problem." Crux and gist belong to arguments, but heart can also be literal: the oldest wood sits at the heart of a tree.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Robert Barr wrote The Strong Arm, first published in 1899. upload.wikimedia.org
- The Strong Arm contains the exact phrase “the very heart of the problem,” in the narration. gutenberg.org
- A tree's oldest wood is at its center. uaex.uada.edu
- 4The stylized shape ♥, used as a symbol of the heart, of love, or of emotion.
She decorated the card with a heart in each corner.
Tiny hearts floated across the screen during the livestream.
- 5Resolve that lets a person persevere through adversity; courage, spirit, or the determination to keep competing.
Down by twenty points, the players still showed plenty of heart.
He took heart from the crowd's encouragement and pressed on.
UsageSet phrases: take heart (feel braver), lose heart (give up hope); a team shows a lot of heart.
Similarcourage, bravery, nerve, spirit, guts
Note
Courage that comes in quantities: a team shows a lot of heart, and Milton's Eve, "recovering heart," gets hers back. Take heart, already in a 17th-century essay by William Temple, is still the everyday way to say someone regains courage. Nerve and bravery suit the single bold act. Heart leans toward staying power, the will to keep going when things are going badly.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 1 fact
- Milton describes Eve as “recovering heart,” meaning that she regains courage; these are the narrator's words. en.wikisource.org
Less common meanings
- 6A card from the hearts suit of a deck, bearing one or more red heart-shaped pips.
I led with a low heart to draw out the ace.
Collecting too many hearts cost him the round.
UsageA heart is one card; hearts names the whole suit: lead a heart, be short in hearts.
- 7To mark a comment, post, reply, or similar with the heart symbol.
Fans heart almost every update the studio posts.
She hearted his comment to show she had seen it.
UsageTakes the post or comment as its object: heart a photo; regular forms hearted, hearting.
Note
A click rather than a feeling. The playful "love" verb declares fondness, while this one records an action on a screen: she hearted my photos.
- 8To be fond of someone or something.
Fans absolutely heart the show's quirky humor.
We totally heart that cozy little cafe downtown.
UsagePlayful, a reading of the ♥ symbol; in serious writing say love or really like instead.
Similarlove
Oppositehate
Note
A verb read off a symbol: written ♥, said aloud as heart, and standing in for love. That is also why "less than three" turns up as a synonym, after the keyboard heart <3.
- 9A living person or being, especially one referred to with feeling.
Not a braver heart ever set sail from that little harbor.
The whole village mourned the passing of such a gentle heart.
Similarsoul
- 10Memory; now used only in the phrase by heart, meaning from memory.
UsageSurvives in by heart, with no article: learn or know something by heart.
- 11Vigorous, productive condition, especially the fertile state of soil and its power to yield strong growth.
Careful manuring kept the meadows in good heart through many seasons.
The exhausted field had lost its heart after decades of overcropping.
UsageMostly in in good heart, said of land in good condition; worn-out land is out of heart.
Similarfertility, condition, vigor
Note
Farmers speak of ground the way they speak of people: worn-out soil has lost its heart, and rested soil wins it back. In Dryden's translation of Virgil's Georgics (1697), fallow land lies idle so that "the spent Earth may gather heart again."
- 12A fond or familiar name used in directly addressing a loved one.
Fear nothing, my heart, for I shall return before winter.
My King, my Jove, I speak to thee, my heart!
c. 1596, William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth,. Epilogue.”Similardarling, dear, honey, sweetheart, baby
Note
A Shakespearean endearment, as in The Tempest's "Awake, dear heart, awake." It nearly always comes with a possessive or a fond adjective: my heart, dear heart. Modern writers reach for it to sound deliberately old-fashioned; Stephen Fry's The Liar (1991) has a speaker warn "my hearts" against unscrupulous admirers. In everyday speech, honey or sugar does the same job without the period costume.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- Shakespeare's The Tempest contains this endearment; Prospero addresses Miranda. folger.edu
- Stephen Fry wrote The Liar, first published in 1991. en.wikipedia.org
- A fictional speaker uses 'my hearts' while warning against unscrupulous admirers. cdn.penguin.co.uk
- 13To give courage to someone; to hearten or encourage.
Note
An old verb for what we now say with hearten. Iago's "My cause is hearted" in Othello is a different use, meaning fixed deep in the heart. The plain verb has fallen out of use, so hearten or encourage is the safe modern choice. Its past form hearted now mostly belongs to the social-media verb.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- Heart formerly meant to hearten or encourage. en.wiktionary.org
- Iago says “My cause is hearted” in Othello. folgerdigitaltexts.org
- Hearted in this quotation means fixed in the heart, rather than encouraged. en.wiktionary.org
- Hearted also survives as the past form of the masonry verb, so it is not confined to social media. thinking-stoneman.blogspot.com
- 14The tender inner core of some vegetables, such as artichoke, cabbage, celery, or lettuce: firm, pale, and often highly valued as food.
Peel away the tough outer stalks until you reach the pale heart of the celery.
The chef braised cabbage hearts in butter and served them with roast pork.
UsageOften plural, after the vegetable's name: artichoke hearts, celery hearts, lettuce hearts.
Note
Peeling down to it, a cook reaches the heart of the celery. Gardeners use the same picture as a verb: a cabbage or lettuce starts to heart when its leaves close into that dense center.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Removing the outer ribs of celery exposes its inner heart. uwyoextension.org
- Heart formation in cabbage and lettuce involves leaves forming a dense central cluster. en.wiktionary.org
- 15The principal fraction drawn off during a distillation run, valued as its purest and finest product.
- 16To form a dense, tightly packed cluster of central leaves, as lettuce or cabbage does.
- 17The twenty-fourth card of the Lenormand cartomantic deck.
- 18To pack the interior of a structure such as a wall or breakwater with rubble.
Showing meanings only.
More uses
- heartsthe playing-card suit marked with red hearts
Practice
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Origin
"Heart" comes from Middle English "herte," from Old English "heorte," going back through Proto-Germanic *hertô to Proto-Indo-European *ḱérd, all meaning "heart." Most modern figurative senses such as passion, courage, and love were already present in Old English, and the verb sense "to love" comes from the 1977 "I ❤ NY" campaign.