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heartrending

adjectiveB2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Heartrending means so sad that it hurts to watch. The photograph you have to look away from.

The image inside the word is violent — to rend is to tear, so a heartrending story tears the heart. That is why it is reserved for real grief: a heartrending appeal from a missing child's parents, heartrending scenes at a hospital. Use it for a mildly sad film and it sounds absurd. It is often written with a hyphen as heart-rending, and both are correct. Its close cousin heartbreaking is commoner in speech and slightly gentler in tone.

Definitions of heartrending

  1. 1adjectiveheartrendingCausing deep distress or grief to witness.B2

    “The letters home make heartrending reading.”

    synonyms: heartbreaking, harrowing

Where it comes from

From heart + rending.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 27 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

heartrending in the wild

  • Regarding this literary approach, Time magazine stated that the author "seamlessly joins heartrending memories with broad cultural, linguistic and political analysis".

    Grace M. Cho

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.