BROKEN HEART

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does broken heart mean? 

• BROKEN HEART (noun)
  The noun BROKEN HEART has 1 sense:

1. devastating sorrow and despair

  Familiarity information: BROKEN HEART used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BROKEN HEART (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Devastating sorrow and despair

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Context example:

a broken heart languishes here

Hypernyms ("broken heart" is a kind of...):

sorrow (an emotion of great sadness associated with loss or bereavement)

 Context examples 

His estates were confiscated, and I was left with a pittance and a broken heart.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Oh, for his broken heart, how dreadfully he wept!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But that he was for ever inconsolable, that he fled from society, or contracted an habitual gloom of temper, or died of a broken heart, must not be depended on—for he did neither.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will die of a broken heart; and then he will be sorry for what he has done.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

He saw, too, what we all did, the infinite kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would restore Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory; he stepped forward and said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was as pale as snow:—"My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you. Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not falter!"

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

It was done before ever I knew the danger, and she was left with her broken heart and her ruined life to return to that home into which she had brought disgrace and misery.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But now—in short, she made herself as miserable as possible for about half an hour, went down when the clock struck five, with a broken heart, and could scarcely give an intelligible answer to Eleanor's inquiry if she was well.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Now, Laurie felt just then that his heart was entirely broken and the world a howling wilderness, but at the sound of certain words which the old gentleman artfully introduced into his closing sentence, the broken heart gave an unexpected leap, and a green oasis or two suddenly appeared in the howling wilderness.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

For, though shy, he did not seem reserved; it had rather the appearance of feelings glad to burst their usual restraints; and having talked of poetry, the richness of the present age, and gone through a brief comparison of opinion as to the first-rate poets, trying to ascertain whether Marmion or The Lady of the Lake were to be preferred, and how ranked the Giaour and The Bride of Abydos; and moreover, how the Giaour was to be pronounced, he showed himself so intimately acquainted with all the tenderest songs of the one poet, and all the impassioned descriptions of hopeless agony of the other; he repeated, with such tremulous feeling, the various lines which imaged a broken heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness, and looked so entirely as if he meant to be understood, that she ventured to hope he did not always read only poetry, and to say, that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I mourned for the broken heart that had found rest in the stormy sea; and for the wandering remnants of the simple home, where I had heard the night-wind blowing, when I was a child.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)