Meaning & use
heart
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Meanings
nouncountablemedical
The organ in the chest that pumps blood around the body.
Grammar: Countable: a healthy heart.
Patterns
- heart disease
- heart rate
Exercise keeps your heart strong.
The doctor listened to her heart.
His heart was beating fast.
nouncountablefigurative
The place in a person where feelings, especially love and kindness, are thought to come from.
Grammar: Often used in set phrases: a kind heart.
Patterns
- in your heart
- with all your heart
She has a kind heart.
In his heart he knew he was wrong.
They welcomed us with open hearts.
nounusually singular
The most central or important part of something.
Grammar: Often used with the: the heart of the matter.
Patterns
- the heart of something
The shop is in the heart of the city.
Honesty is at the heart of good business.
We reached the heart of the forest.
noununcountable
Courage or willingness to keep trying.
Grammar: Appears in phrases such as lose heart or take heart.
Patterns
- lose heart
- take heart
The team lost heart after the early goal.
Take heart; the worst is over.
She put her heart into every performance.
nouncountable
A shape with two rounded top lobes meeting at a point at the bottom, used as a symbol of love.
Grammar: Often drawn or sent as a symbol: a heart on the card.
Patterns
- a heart shape
He drew a heart on the card.
The cookies were shaped like hearts.
She sent three red hearts in a text.
Word forms
| plural | hearts |
|---|
Common combinations
- break someone's heart
- The news broke her heart.
- learn by heart
- Students learned the poem by heart.
- heavy heart
- He left with a heavy heart.
- heart attack
- He suffered a heart attack at fifty.
- change of heart
- She had a change of heart and stayed.
- from the bottom of my heart
- Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Synonyms and how they differ
- core
- Core is the central part of an object or idea, but it lacks the emotional flavor of heart.
- center
- Center is the plain geometric middle, while heart suggests importance.
- courage
- Courage is bravery only, whereas heart can mean spirit and determination.
- essence
- Essence is the basic nature of something, more abstract than the heart of it.
Opposites
Word family
- hearty adjective
- warm and enthusiastic
- heartfelt adjective
- deeply sincere
- heartless adjective
- without pity
- hearten verb
- to encourage
- heartbreak noun
- deep sorrow
Commonly confused: heart or hart?
heart vs hart
A hart is a male deer. It sounds the same as heart but is spelled differently.
Practice
The old market is in the ___ of the city.
Choose one answer.
The heart of a place is its central part. Edge, side and corner mean the opposite.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “heart”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.