to break someone's heart
343
3.4
- phrasal verb
- /breɪk ˈsʌmˌwʌnz hɑrt/
- Informal
- He didn't mean to break her heart when he said those things.
- going to break someone's heart
- knows it will break her heart
- want to break my someone's heart
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Watch on YouTubeMost of us are devastated if we believe we broke someone's heart, even if they behave badly.
- Most of us are devastated if we believe we broke someone's heart, even if they behave badly.
Examples
-
"We were a very close-knit family, and this just broke everybody's heart," Cleary explains.
Blog text (15) -
It breaks my heart.
-
So, you broke it off and broke her heart.
-
Oh, and, um, you know, the world will break your heart.
-
Yeah, he broke my heart.
-
You broke my heart, Joey.
-
I did not return home, and no doubt broke my parents' hearts.
Fiction book (1997) -
Just somethin' about that little girl, sick, without a mama, it just breaks my heart.
-
Most of us are devastated if we believe we broke someone's heart, even if they behave badly.
-
You're going to break your old man's heart.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Make someone suffer physical or emotional pain
978
2.8
To suddenly make someone feel a strong emotion
276
4.7
To defeat completely, often by force, ending a group or idea
143
4.6
Cause deep pain to someone's feelings and destroy their hopes
84
2.3
To make someone feel sad
41
4.9
To make someone feel sad or upset
39
4.2
To make someone feel sad or discouraged
28
4.1
To make someone feel sad and lose hope
26
3.3
To feel sharp emotional pain after someone says something hurtful
17
4.1
To make someone feel very sad
10
5.7
To hurt a person's feelings deeply
3
4.6
To make someone cry because of a strong feeling like sadness or joy
3
7.9
To hurt someone's feelings very deeply
2
7.6
To deeply hurt someone's feelings
2
2.5
Hurt someone's feelings by saying or doing something
Antonyms
How Heartbreaking
256
4.9
- Informal
343
3.4
273
1.0
294
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'break' (to damage or cause to fail) with 'heart' used metaphorically as the center of emotions; together they naturally convey causing emotional pain. This metaphorical mapping (heart = emotions) is common across many languages, so an average B1 learner who knows the constituents will likely infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Break someone's heart may come from the old idea that the heart is where we keep love and feelings, and to break it is like badly hurting those feelings inside. So saying you break someone's heart means you cause them great sadness or 'heartache'.