heart-shattering news
- noun
:
noticias desgarradoras
- The heart-shattering news of her grandmother's passing left her in tears.
Examples
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The heart-shattering news of the accident spread quickly through the town.
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She received heart-shattering news about her father's illness.
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She struggled to speak after receiving such heart-shattering news about her childhood friend.
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When he opened the letter, it contained the most heart-shattering news he could imagine.
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The heart-shattering news left everyone in shock.
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After hearing the heart-shattering news about the earthquake, the community united to help.
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He was devastated by the heart-shattering news that his best friend had moved away.
Synonyms
92
3.7
Causing someone to feel very sad and upset
17
3.5
To make someone feel very sad and often cry
Antonyms
How Painful
Surface Forms
Morphology
heart-shattering + news
The adjective is transparently built from 'heart' (emotion organ/metonym for feelings) + 'shattering' (breaking into pieces), so a learner who knows both words can predict it describes news that breaks or intensely hurts the heart — i.e., causes overwhelming emotional pain. The metaphor is conventional and cross-linguistically common (heart/heartache metaphors), making the composition easily inferable rather than arbitrary.
Etymology
Heart-shattering news uses the image of a heart being shattered like glass, breaking into pieces from a sudden, sharp pain. That's why it means 'news that causes overwhelming emotional pain'.