bleeding heart
10
7.4
- noun
- /ˈbliːdɪŋ hɑrt/
- Offensive
:
sensiblero
- OK, all you bleeding hearts.
- bleeding-heart liberals
- bleeding-heart conservative
They've known I'm a a bleeding heart since we first met.
- They've known I'm a a bleeding heart since we first met.
- I always say this, the greatest mind cannot speak to a bleeding heart.
- It's hard to pinpoint George, but at the fundamental core there is definitely this bleeding heart syndrome where they think America is a.
Examples
-
The second type of students I see are the "bleeding-heart environmentalists." They yearn to make the world better.
Academic text (1998) -
She criticized the new policy, calling it a blatant example of bleeding hearts trying to interfere with law enforcement.
-
Speak up against war and be called a "bleeding heart."
Blog text (12) -
I'd never have taken you for a bleeding heart.
-
Call me a bleeding heart, but I call it part of my duty as an American citizen.
Blog text (33) -
They've known I'm a a bleeding heart since we first met.
-
If my belief in these words makes me a bleeding-heart liberal, let me bleed.
Blog text (8) -
During my years in Congress and for the four decades since, I've been labeled a 'bleeding-heart liberal.'
Blog text (29) -
Many believe that the bleeding hearts in the community are too quick to sympathize with the troubled youth.
-
The documentary spotlighted the struggles of the underprivileged, but some viewers dismissed it as simply bleeding-heart rhetoric.
Synonyms
A person who feels sorry for people in pain and tries to comfort them
Antonyms
How Sympathetic
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'heart' (centre of emotions/compassion) with the metaphorical image of 'bleeding', so a learner who knows both words can usually infer a general sense of strong sympathy or emotional pain. However, the specific idiomatic nuance — that the sympathy is excessive and subject to criticism — is not fully predictable from the parts, making the expression only partially transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Bleeding heart comes from the picture of a heart that seems to be bleeding, which shows strong feeling and pain for others. That's why people call someone a bleeding heart when they show 'too much sympathy'.