HEARTLESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does heartless mean? 

• HEARTLESS (adjective)
  The adjective HEARTLESS has 2 senses:

1. lacking in feeling or pity or warmth

2. devoid of courage or enthusiasm

  Familiarity information: HEARTLESS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HEARTLESS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lacking in feeling or pity or warmth

Synonyms:

hardhearted; heartless

Similar:

flint; flinty; granitic; obdurate; stony (showing unfeeling resistance to tender feelings)

Derivation:

heartlessness (an absence of concern for the welfare of others)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Devoid of courage or enthusiasm

Similar:

spiritless (lacking ardor or vigor or energy)

Domain usage:

archaicism; archaism (the use of an archaic expression)

 Context examples 

Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But between ourselves, Windibank, it was as cruel and selfish and heartless a trick in a petty way as ever came before me.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She didn't want Laurie to think her a heartless, worldly creature.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The comfort, the freedom, the gaiety of the room was over, hushed into cold composure, determined silence, or insipid talk, to meet the heartless elegance of her father and sister.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Clerval at first attributed my unusual spirits to joy on his arrival, but when he observed me more attentively, he saw a wildness in my eyes for which he could not account, and my loud, unrestrained, heartless laughter frightened and astonished him.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise: she was coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not worthlessly selfish.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Unfeeling, heartless creator!

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely: frivolous, mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather calculated to weary than enrage a listener.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of your memory: you wander here and there, seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasure—I mean in heartless, sensual pleasure—such as dulls intellect and blights feeling.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)